Fly Me to the Moon
by Skarto
Summary: Freedom is their goal, but neither GLaDOS nor Aperture want to release them. When Chell is injured, it's up to Rattmann to save her – and free himself from Aperture's control. RattmannXChell
1. Chapter 1

_The bell invites_

_hear the turret_

_for it is knell_

_that summons to heaven_

_or to hell._

* * *

><p><em>Tenacity.<em>

He slid his hand down the wall. Red, sticky. One of his murals? No picture soothed his jittery thoughts, no forgotten formula or words broke through the solid colour, just an ugly smear in a pristine room.

_It's her blood,_ Cube said in his ear.

Back pressed against the wall, he shifted his gaze to the camera high on the far side of the test chamber. The red light glared in his direction, but it didn't follow his movements. Good, that meant _she_ was occupied. To his left, a turret lay on its side like a squashed tin spider. His hand touched the wall again, fingers running over the scars of bullet holes. Only one thing could lower such an abnormal tenacity level. Fatigue and starvation had no effect on a subject so stubborn. Other subjects always had a threshold, a point where the body would quit, but as long as she could breathe she would not give up. An anomaly.

_Shouldn't test anomalies, skews the results, voids the test – _

_Don't think like her. Focus. You need to find the girl._

Cube was so wise.

He wiped his hand on the sleeve of his white coat – what did one more stain matter? – and let his eyes roam around the room. It hurt to look at the empty walls. He wished he had the time to paint, to remind himself of the past through his brush, but the bloody trail that led to the door put all thoughts of art out of his head. Footprints turned to puddles where Chell must have paused. Pain, or contemplation of the test? Probability pointed to the former.

"She must be badly hurt." The quiet room amplified his voice, jolted him. Keeping his eyes on the camera, he edged back towards the vent he had emerged from.

_What are you going to do?_

"Help her. She's the only one who can stop this."

* * *

><p>"<em>In the event of fatal injuries, your death may be recorded for training purposes. If you would like to withdraw consent, an Aperture Science test associate will be on hand to remind you of how selfish you are."<em>

There. He was close. Test chamber six- no, seventeen. Under a pipe, over a rail and down some stairs. He knew the test chambers like the back of his hand, but the infrastructure of Aperture had become burned into his mind. No map, no arrows or signs. Any rat forced to run the same maze every day would remember his path.

One of the bottom panels of the wall had been extended for a portal placement. Plenty of space to squeeze his body through. He crouched, peered out from behind the panel and felt the cold kick of adrenaline flood his stomach. Salvation lay crumpled on the floor like a torn painting, an angel with broken wings.

She had barely made it through the door.

He needed to hurry, to reach her before she bled to death, but he couldn't help himself. His fingertips ran over the edge of the wall as he stared. After all this time of watching from the shadows, he would see her up close, touch her, breath in the scent of another human. The thought almost drove a whimper from his throat. Could he bear to hold something so perfect with such unworthy hands? Would she become tainted, corrupted with the same madness that consumed him?

_Schizophrenia isn't contagious, _Cube said in Henry's voice. _Good thing too, Doug, or I'd have to put in a request for a transfer. _

"It's not my fault."

_I know, I know. Don't worry about it. Jesus, you always look so damn nervous. Now, wasn't there something you needed to do?_

A slight overlap of wall panels could save them. He placed Cube in the gap and hoped the mechanism wasn't strong enough to crush it. Apologies would have to wait.

_You can't get the girl from here, she's too far away! _

"I have to try."

_You'll kill us both._

He swallowed, looked at the camera. "Maybe."

_...Ready?_

He tensed, muscles tight, and placed one foot behind him. Quick, he had to be quick. The countdown in his head kept mixing up numbers, giving him shapes and colours instead. Might as well just –

_GO!_

White bloomed, rose up around him in a dizzying void. Blood pulsed in his ears and drowned out the drum of his footsteps. His heartbeat became her name inside his head_._

Metres turned to miles; seconds became years.

"_Who – ah. You." _That feminine, metallic purr haunted his dreams. He staggered, nearly tripped over his own feet. _"I'd say it's good to see you again, but, due to __overheating, my truth enhancer is offline."_

He fell to his knees beside Chell, pressed a shaking hand against the shredded skin of her side. Three bullets at least. Was she even still alive? Fingertips brushed her neck, a pulse kicked beneath them. He managed a small smile. Tenacious indeed.

"_Have you cleared this with your supervisor?" _As he expected,GLaDOS wasn't going to give up her new toy so easily._ "Oh, that's right. He's dead. Looks like you won't be getting that clearance. So stop."_

Metal strained and whined behind him. He slung one of her arms around his neck and heaved Chell up as best he could. It might exacerbate the bleeding, but what other choice did he have? He would not be trapped and forced to run these sadistic gauntlets over and over again – he would rather die.

The camera regarded him, swivelling as though mocking his attempts. _"You're standing in the way of scientific progress. That's a breach of your contract."_

Cube's wail reached him from the other side of the room._ Hurry,_ _I can't keep this up for much longer! _

"_There's really no point in going through all this effort just for her. She doesn't know the meaning of the word 'gratitude'. Like you."_

He took one step and her weight almost drove him to the floor. Then again. Again. He jerked her by the sleeve, the smears of blood slipping in front of his eyes, and pulled her less than two inches. The panels clanged against Cube, a frantic rhythm that would break at any moment. His panting became lost in the cacophony. Wasted muscles strained, ached. The room blurred.

_Always a threshold, always a point –_

His knees hit the ground, sobs trembling through him. The gap in the wall might as well be at the other end of the facility.

"_Yes – it's all here in your file. Tenacity level – normal. Paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis – high. If you had followed regulations I would have made a special test for you. I think I'll still make it. My hypothesis is that paranoid schizophrenics take longer to die from neurotoxin than their co-workers."_

He sank to the floor, held Chell close. Blood seeped from her clothes into his. She wouldn't die alone, not like the others. At least he could give her that. Hair brushed his cheek as he rested his head against hers. Tears slipped between them as he closed his eyes and winced as Cube began shrieking. Too late. He gave up. Failed the test.

Her pulse slowed against his lips.

_What are you doing, Doug?_

Henry's voice again. For a dead man, he sure had a lot to say.

_Still playing with your toy? Hey, give it to me, we'll pop a portal in here and another one in the cafeteria. Save us ten minutes on our lunch break, right?_

"Right," he said, his voice thick. "They can't punish us if we claim convenience..."

_Exactly. It saves precious time. Do you hear me, Doug? Precious time – you're rapidly running out of that, aren't you?_

Point A to point B. How could he have overlooked something so obvious? His eyes darted around the test chamber. There – the portal gun, near the door. No thinking, no planning. He let Chell slip to the ground and dived, grabbed the device as his brain tried to catch up. Blue on the wall. Orange under their feet. The sick sensation of falling _down _and then _sideways_ jarred him for a moment. Which way was up?

"_Don't blame me if she throws you into the incinerator."_

Cube screeched in his ear, babbled as its casing began to crack. He shook his head, grabbed Chell and tugged her legs into the gap. Hope fed his muscles, his resolve. Those laborious inches came faster.

_Help me!_

"_In the event that she does throw you into the incinerator," _GlaDOS said, _"I am required to remind you that I told you so. Of course, the sheer agony of being burned alive may drown out the meaning of anything I say to you, but I know you'll get the message."_

Arms next, then her head. After an age, she lay on the metal grill floor behind the wall. Safe – for the moment.

_Don't let her kill me!_

_A little bit more, just a little more, _he told his body, ignoring the voice that reminded him they still needed to reach a den and stop Chell from dying. He grunted, twisted, and pulled up. Cube came loose with a sound like stone scarring metal, and momentum sent them sprawling to the floor. The panel slammed shut. More adrenaline, and this time his stomach rolled with nausea. No way could he stand. It would be so easy to lie back, to let it all slip away –

_A little bit more._ Cube echoed his tiredness, his frustration. _Get up. Take care of her. You didn't go through all this just to watch another person die. _

He stood, body running on automatic and responses robotic, his arm around Chell. A responsibility. A reason to stay alive.

GlaDOS' voice reached him, muffled by the wall, the robotic buzz somehow managing to mimic the tone of a spoiled child deprived of her favourite candy.

"_She is a better test subject than you ever were!"_

* * *

><p>AN: My first Portal fic, beta'd by Maiafay. Got crit? Lay it on me. Chapter 2 will hopefully be up soon, and I'll also have to bump up the rating for it.

I take a lot of info from the Portal comic _Lab Rat_, so if you haven't read it, take a gander because it's awesome.


	2. Chapter 2

-:-

_The many men, so beautiful!_

_And they all dead did lie;_

_And a thousand thousand slimy things_

_Lived on; and so did I._

–_Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_

_-:-_

No one ever left Aperture.

"_Even if they fire us. Even if we die."_

Henry had told him this with a reverent smile, the same one he wore every morning when Cave Johnson's speeches rattled at them through ancient speakers. _"She's like a clingy woman – get inside her once and the bitch will never leave you alone. Walk out the door and she follows, nagging, asking why you don't love __her back."_

He had disagreed at the time.

_But you knew it was true, Doug, _the dead whispered._ We're still here. Aperture employees, good employees, we lived testing and died testing. It was what we wanted._

"It wasn't."

He stood, blood still hot on his hands. The voices hissed into silence. Another sweep of the tiny office, another surge of hate for the way his eyes flickered to the empty corners. No cameras, but the ghosts of Aperture still watched with invisible eyes. Above his murals, where he couldn't reach with his paintbrush, they stared and murmured to each other. Sometimes, when the room turned red and his pictures came alive, he thought he recognised a few. _We're still here, _they said. All they ever said.

Chell lay on his makeshift bed of blankets and cardboard. The splashes of blood against the white of her face made nausea twist his stomach. He didn't dare clean them off. If he touched her more than he needed to she might shatter. An angel made of glass. He held his breath, listened to hers. Shallow, uneven. Medical kits had helped with removing the bullets and shock, but what she needed was blood. He didn't need to look at her file again to know they weren't a match. All he could do was wait. How long would it take before he knew if she would recover? Days, hours?

The room wove itself in a figure of eight as he paced. Nothing he could do. Helpless. Just like before.

_You did everything you could, _Cube said from the corner.

"Did I, though?" Even he didn't know which incident he was referring to. "I put _things _back together. Not people. What if I've done something wrong? What if I've made it worse –"

_Then she would already be dead._

He took a deep breath, but it didn't stop his shaking or quell the tremor in his voice. "If – if she does... go, then I'll do it this time. I really will."

_Please don't._ The surfaces of Cube gleamed under the florescent light, scratches and dents on its paintwork bringing a lump to his throat. _Not again. I don't want to die._

Scars itched in reminder. Selfish, but better than giving GLaDOS the satisfaction of killing him. With his back against the wall, he slid to the ground beside Chell. Tears blurred her into an orange blob. He shouldn't have to rationalise his own suicide. No one should. To try and distract himself, he covered her with his lab coat, checked the bandages on her side.

_It'__ll be all right. We'll get this sorted out, _Henry said, the words an echo from a lifetime ago. Like then, they brought no comfort now.

He wiped at his eyes, focused on his pictures that decorated the office walls. They helped, a little. Near the door, a painting of Cube flying towards the clouds faded into a heap of dead scientists. On the opposite wall, Schrödinger's cat jumped for freedom only to find itself in a slightly bigger box.

The floor churned like a turbulent carpet sea under his feet as he walked forward. One wall glared, white and empty. The invisible eyes crowded it and the voices resumed their hissing. He had been waiting for something special to fill it with, something to drive away the stares and whispers from the whole room. His eyes found Chell's face, peeking out from under his coat, the smooth skin of her cheeks and curl of parted lips stirring something deep inside. He let the feeling take control of his hand. Fingers tightened around a brush while the blank wall loomed in front of him. The voices muttered at his audacity, but her features were all he could see, all he cared about. She was with him; he feared nothing.

The brush touched white to the wall.

Peace followed.

-:-

The last stroke was always the hardest.

His body sagged, brush slipping from his hand and clattering as it hit the ground. The noise startled him from his trance. Like an eroding dream, the details of what he had imagined, what he had painted, were fast crumbling away. Fatigue drove him to his knees – not surprising, there was no way to tell how long he had been standing there. Hours could dart past him like deer fleeing from wolves, or hover like heavy moths around a light, but painting sucked away any sense of 'time' into a black hole of cats, formulae and Cube. Only one thing mattered – the bliss of making the images from his head _real_.

The colours and shapes writhed on the wall. He closed his eyes, counted to ten.

_Protect me from the metal God, _Cube said, and he recognised the voice as his own. _Fly me to __the moon on the wings of an angel._

His eyes opened. Salvation bloomed before him.

All Chell's perfection had been captured in detail. Her naked form floated towards a crescent moon, arms stretched out and head tilted back as though granting forgiveness. White wings emerged from behind her shoulders, spread in flight, the feathers grazing the edge of the wall. Cube flew beside her, tiny wings of its own. He followed the curve of her breasts and hips, any shame swallowed by awe.

He had never painted anything so beautiful.

The euphoria faded as his eyes reached her feet. Flames licked up them, curled around her calves like they were trying to drag her back down. Below the flames gaped a black hole. Dead scientists lay at the bottom. The skeleton of GLaDOS hung, limp, like a puppet with severed strings. He squinted, picked out a figure with an orange scribble across its face lying nearby.

So, that was how it would end. Maybe it was for the best.

_You're a good person, _Cube whispered, _you don't deserve that._

"It doesn't matter if I'm good or not – what matters is what I did. What we all did."

_You saved the girl's life, gave her another chance. Isn't that redemption enough?_

"And if she doesn't make it?" He rose, leg muscles trembling, and staggered back to where Chell lay. Paler than her painting, but still so, so beautiful. "I would have put her through all that for nothing but a few hours of torture. My reason for waking her up was... selfish. She just had a high tenacity level, that was all, but now she's here and she had to go through all that because of me – " Panic and guilt clutched at his throat, his voice rising into hysterical sobs. "And – and if she lives she'll have to go back out there and do it all again, face GLaDOS, experience more pain and fear – why did I – maybe –"

_Don't._

"Maybe I shouldn't have woken her at all!"

He clapped a hand over his mouth as soon as the words left it. After everything that had happened, his emotions felt far too raw, like someone had stripped the skin off his soul and exposed the core to the harsh elements. Every word he said grated against that core, emotions bleeding out and impossible to contain.

_Do you believe in justice?_

Cube's question made him frown. He sat down, back against the wall and knees drawn up against his chest. Chell was close enough to touch, though he would never dare.

"Justice is a human concept."

_Are you not human?_

"Sometimes it doesn't feel like it. I don't know if you can apply justice it to a psychotic super-computer. She did what we told her to: test."

_Things like her can't be allowed to live. If given the chance, she will kill you like she killed the others, so be human and treat her like the threat she is. Either she dies or you die._

"Even if it means..."

_Even if it means the girl suffers more pain and fear. If she succeeds, freedom for you both._

Freedom. The chance to see the sun again, the sky. "You're right."

_I usually am._

Paint – or was it blood? – itched on his face. He scratched and red flakes fell away. Shame the showers were at the other end of the facility – he would do anything for a proper wash in hot water. Or to spend a night in a proper bed.

The mere thought of sleep wrenched his mouth open in a yawn.

_You should get some rest._

"I can't." He rubbed his eyes and yawned again. "If something goes wrong, if she needs me –"

_You've been awake for a long time._

"Really. I wasn't aware."

Seconds dragged, and eventually a whole minute managed to limp past. Everything seemed to float. His eyes stung when he blinked and he wondered how long it would be before he went mad.

The next time he blinked his eyes refused to open again. Darkness seemed to suck his conscious down and the temptation to sink into that abyss almost overwhelmed him.

"No."

His voice jerked him half-awake with that denial. The world was nothing but multicoloured blobs that soon faded back into black. Something soft brushed against his hand as it flopped by his side, something that felt like strands of hair.

He needed to stay awake.

For her.

He needed

-:-

those silly little smart-screws that always rolled out of their packet and through the grate on the floor. Why did they have to make them so small? How did they expect him to fix a hand-held portal device when half the pieces were either near-invisible to the naked eye, or would explode if he looked at them funny?

He grunted and sifted through the layer of papers spread in a semicircle around him. Maybe Henry's suggestion of sitting on a chair and working at a desk would mean he lost less components, but at least back here, behind the wall panels of a test chamber, he didn't have to deal with GLaDOS staring at him. 'Analysing', Henry called it. Sure. The same way a cat 'analysed' a mouse before it tortured and ate it. Shuddering at the thought, he uncrossed then recrossed his legs and reached for the cup of coffee that sat on a nearby Weighted Companion Cube (they made such _perfect _tables). The bitter bite as the liquid washed over his tongue made him hum in satisfaction.

Caffeine and sugar rushed through his blood. The radio tinkled away in the background. There was a kind of rebellious thrill that came with doing work in off-limit areas. As ill as it may have been to think such things of the dead, he saw it as a big middle finger to Cave Johnson. Fifteen years in the ground and his damn pre-recorded messages still controlled them. It was more than mildly annoying to hear him blame all company faults on Black Mesa – even if they _were_ research-stealing bastards – it was just plain wrong. Henry didn't think so, and often launched into a 'we need a new Cave' campaign – during which he would nod and make positive grunts at Henry's every pause..

Three beeps of his wristwatch interrupted the search for wayward screws. Still shifting papers around with his feet, he dug in the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a small bottle of pills. Two spilled into his hand. He washed them down with another swig of coffee, frowning at the hollow rattle as he put the bottle back. Nearly empty. Another trip to the pharmacy was due, another knowing look from Henry when he dodged out for that hour. Inconvenient and embarrassing, but better than the alternative.

An _ah, there you are _noise came from his throat as the screws were finally excavated from Paper Mountain. He tipped them from their packet into his palm, careful not to let any bounce onto the ground. A single one was half the length of his fingernail so having to scrape around when they escaped was a pain.

He pulled the portal device onto his lap. The shell flopped back, broken from when the test subject using it had apparently forgotten about gravity. The screws would bind it back together, secure it to the core section. Now he just needed –

"_Emergency protocol five-five-two is now in effect. All Aperture Science employees and pieces of sentient technology are to report to their nearest assembly point for evacuation. Test subjects, continue testing."_

The voice that leaked through the vent of the test chamber sounded far too happy. It wasn't GLaDOS at least, just the male overview announcer. Five five two. What the hell was five five two? He stood with a slight wobble and set the portal device down next to the Weighted Companion Cube. No time to sort out the mess of papers. Everything would have to wait until he came back – assuming he did come back. Whatever five five two was, it had to be bad to warrant a facility-wide evacuation.

The announcement looped. He took one last look around before slipping through an air vent and dropping into the observation office. Only the quiet whirr of computer fans greeted him. Screens that normally displayed a variety of results and test conditions were now filled with nothing but the Aperture logo. A dot of red light from the test chamber caught his eye. The camera was fixed on him and the more he stared at it, the more his stomach churned.

It had to be her.

_Henry. Gotta find Henry._

The corridors should have been busy, should have been bustling with people all rushing to the same destination, yet he met no one as he ran through them. Around every corner a camera followed him, the weight of being watched crawling under his skin until he was no longer running _towards_, but _away _from something.

He reached the hall preceding GLaDOS', panting more from fear than exertion. People, thank God, people were there. Around thirty, all scientists and some he recognised. They turned at his entry, faces expectant, then dismissed him almost immediately. Not even a grunt of acknowledgement. He joined their muttering little cluster, relief flooding him as he spotted Henry at the front of the group.

"Hey, Henry! Henry!" He pushed through to the front, hope plummeting like a shot dove when he saw Henry's hand reach for the assistance phone on the wall and fingers punch in 2-1-9.

Rouge AI. _Oh no._

Everyone watched, speculation and theories silenced. Even the walls seemed to hold their breath. Henry caught his eye and flashed a brief smile in automatic greeting, but the frown on his face was carved from wood. The slam of the phone meeting the receiver made them all jump.

"I can't get through. Jesus!" Henry's hand rubbed across his forehead, his eyes on the floor as though looking for a solution in the blank tiles. Suggestions popped up from around him, ideas born from fear.

"Try the extension to human resources, they might know what's going on if they all haven't left yet – "

"What about trying to reach another facility?"

"No, look, we need to get to the main breaker room. I know there's a switch – "

"I'm going to talk to her."

Henry's words stopped all discussion. Someone shouldered past, voice several octaves higher than it should have been.

"Didn't you see what she did to test chamber twelve? There was no reason for that! Doctor Carver was still in there – "

"I'm aware of what happened, McKenzie."

"I don't think you fucking are! She activated the neurotoxin – and don't you tell me that was a mistake, we all know, Doctor Field, that GLaDOS 'doesn't make mistakes'! Your words! You go in there, you're not coming out."

A cold, heavy feeling of dread had curled up in his chest at McKenzie's words. He had always known, or at least suspected, that she would do something nasty. She had taken such pleasure in the data obtained when test subjects failed. They all had, in a way.

He closed his eyes and tried not to vomit.

"Regardless," Henry said, using his _don__'__t talk to me like that or I__'__ll do more than just fire you_ voice, "I might be able to find out why she's doing this – and why she's put us in lockdown. Five five two is cause for evacuation to another facility, but we can't evacuate if we can't get out of the damn doors. So everybody get down to the assembly points and wait for me to sort this out, or, after, you can explain to the higher-ups exactly why you defied orders."

"I'm not – "

"_McKenzie, move your ass or so help me, I__'__ll move it myself!"_

Cave Johnson himself couldn't have had more effect.

He felt the others shift around him, heard the whoosh of the door as they left.

"Doug?"

Bright lights bit into his eyes when he opened them. His sleeve was the first thing his hand found, fingers clenching it so tight that they ached. Henry watched him, head tilted to the side. "Come on, Doug, saddle up." The smile was fake, meant to reassure. He wished he were that ignorant. "Time to go."

"You can't."

The bottle of pills rattled as his body shook. Panic built, consuming like an inferno and his legs threatened to spill him to the floor. Henry gripped his shoulders. Fingers squeezed.

"I helped make her, right? She'll listen to me."

"She won't, she's crazy, she'll kill us all – "

"Now you know that's not true, Doug. This is a glitch, nothing more. I'm not wasting years of time, research and money dismantling her. Here." Something cold and plastic pressed into his hand. "If you're so worried, take this. Level seven access to doors and computers. If you need it, use it. You won't need it, though."

His gaze kept flitting to the door. Behind it lay a monster, a self-aware mass of wires and circuits. Empathy wasn't one of her functions. No amount of begging would convince her not to do something. Henry gave his shoulder one last pat, his face changing from understanding to the blank neutrality of a professional in the blink of an eye. An Aperture employee through and through.

He made no move to stop Henry when he keyed in the code to GLaDOS' chamber. Words stuck in his throat, any protests strangled into a whisper of air like the mute explanations of a lucid dreamer. When the door opened he flinched back, the mouse shrinking from the scent of the cat. Her yellow optic lens faced them, tilting and widening, scanning as though she could read their minds.

_Maybe she can, _saida voice that should have been silenced by the pills. He forced it back, locked it in a tiny room somewhere in his brain, and threw away the key.

"'When life gives you lemons'." Henry's wink made his chest ache and everything inside him screamed to pull the other man back when he walked over the threshold. "It'll be all right. We'll get this sorted out."

'Good luck' sounded stupid and 'don't get killed' sounded even worse, not that he could make any sort of noise around the lump in his throat. He settled for a tight nod, heartbeat loud in his ears as the door started to close. Henry's eyes stayed on his, even when the buzz of GLaDOS' voice reached them.

"_Hello, Doctor Field."_

A clang of metal against metal, and Henry disappeared.

Absolute silence in the wake of noise always seemed to drive home the fact that one was truly alone. Not even the voice in his head had anything to say. He usually relished this solitude, welcomed it. Now it crushed him. The door swam in front of him and it took every bit of willpower to prise his gaze away. He thought about waiting, hoping Henry would walk back through the door. No, that was futile – he refused to act like a dog sitting at the grave of its master. Moving and finding everyone else was the best option, but could he bear to face those cameras again?

"_W__arning: facility lockdown is now in effect. All Aperture Science employees, please – " _The announcement fizzled out, static hissing from speakers. A moment later they blasted white noise in preparation. He fled the room, but he couldn't run from her voice.

"_Emergency testing has been initialised. All Aperture Science employees are to report to their nearest test chamber for voluntary participation of tests." _GLaDOS' pause gave him a single shred of hope that Henry had succeeded. _"Although testing is stric__tly voluntary, the enrichment centre is required to remind you that any employee found not participating will be subject to investigation and interrogation. By turrets."_

The cameras winked at him, now a secondary threat, while his feet took him back down the corridors he had run through minutes before. Thoughts dulled, overridden by primal fear. She was testing them. She would hunt him, make him test too. Now he knew what it was like to truly fear for his life, what it was like to be prey to something real.

_Run through the maze, hide behind the walls, rat. It's what you do best._

The observation room, close. He longed to throw himself into safety, to curl up against a wall with his hands over his ears and hope the nightmare would end.

_Mom, the monsters are chasing me again!_

_They're just in your mind, darling, now take your medicine._

Pills wouldn't stop this, not even if he downed the rest of the bottle.

He reached a fork, began to swerve left. Even unfounded, paranoia should have taught him better. Red beams stretched the length of the corridor, criss-crossed like the delicate threads of a spider web. His leg brushed one of these threads before he could stop, and the spiders jerked into action.

"_Firing..."_

Bullets tore into the wall. Tiles cracked, plaster pluming out like smoke. A clumsy stumble saved his life, momentum tipping him back round the corner, out of the turrets' sight. The adrenaline silenced any hysterical thoughts (_turrets, she has the turrets, oh good Christ SHE HAS THE) _and made him pick himself back up. _Survive_, it whispered to his muscles. Fight or flight. He took a deep breath, forced himself to calm even as the turrets chirped after him. A cool head would increase his chances far better than running blind into danger. If he could just find another air vent, a door that he could override into the maintenance areas, then he would be safe. The map of Aperture swirled in his head. Where was the best place to go? Should he double back and head for the labs or the employee offices? He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths. A cool head, brains over brawn. The offices, closer.

Another peal of gunfire rang down the halls as he turned to leave, followed by sounds that were definitely not mechanical. A whimper, a thick glug of fluid. The thud of something hitting the floor.

His ears were still ringing when he walked away.

Corridors. White lights and white tiles. He barely noticed the cameras now. Theories ticked over, a scrawl of formulae in his mind, but the results might as well have been written in hieroglyphics. The cores should have worked.

_She has a little bit of human inside her. _The voice turned into a smile, teeth flashing in darkness. _Certainly the instinct to kill, anyway. Maybe she remembers that. Maybe that__'__s all she remem__bers._

His legs stopped him at the door to the offices. Unlocked.

Inside, computer screens flashed screen savers. An eerie feeling twisted his stomach. There had been people here, working, not more than twenty minutes ago. Coats still hung on the backs of chairs, abandoned by their owners in the rush for presumed safety. Personal effects decorated desks, each one he saw tearing away at the dam that kept him from breaking. A little clay model. A troll. A mug belonging to the World's Best Dad. He skirted his eyes over everything, trying not to let them linger. The photographs were the hardest; pictures of families, arms around each other, in parks, on beaches. Husbands, wives, lovers. Children. Some of the people in those pictures were probably still alive, trapped in whatever test GLaDOS had set for them. Still alive and still thinking, feeling. He couldn't help them. Better one person living than everyone dead.

Survival logic. Coward's logic.

His eyes scanned the walls until he found the polished square of an air vent. Too high to reach from the ground or even standing on a chair, but thankfully whoever controlled Aperture's finances had decided on the cheap wooden desks. Easy to sweep the computer, potted plant and a card (_Happy 30__th__ Birthday!) _of the closest on to the floor and then drag it against the wall. He climbed up, the wood wobbling under him, and examined the vent. A catch, not screws. Good.

Aperture groaned around him, test chambers shifting under GLaDOS' command. Perhaps she was building new ones; she did have a lot of test subjects now.

Stomach rolling at the thought, he smacked at the metal grill and lifted it off the catch. The darkness beyond beckoned.

"_That's strange. Your file doesn't mention deafness in your... colourful medical history."_

Cave Johnson had wanted them to hear his voice all the time. Even if he couldn't live forever, he would never be forgotten. Now the speakers, placed in accordance with his will, would be her advantage.

He swung himself into the vent, hands too busy to cover his ears.

"[Initialising truth enhancement in three. Two. One.] _Doctor Field and I were just having a __discussion. We both agree that you should come back here instead of crawling around in air vents. Think about it; what kind of scientist d__oes that? You can__'__t perform Aperture Science approved repairs while on your hands and knees." _She sighed, tone dropping. _"You know, thanks to these cores, I hear voices too. We have that in common. Why don__'__t you come back here so we can talk?"_

"No," he said, easing himself around a corner. He hoped she could hear him. "Absolutely not, _robot_."

A cheap shot, almost childish. Below him, the sound of an explosion – or something very large being dropped very far.

"_Mortality is quite interesting when you__'__re go__ing to live forever. I should know, I__'__m testing it right now. For research purposes, does the thought of death scare you?" _Another explosion._ "It should."_

He shut his mouth. Baiting her would only make things worse. Around another dusty corner, light burst through a grate at the side. He peeked out, saw urinals and cubicles. Not where he wanted to be. Where were the maintenance areas from here? He consulted his mental map. Out of the bathroom, then a right down the hall to where an observation booth overlooked test chamber eight.

"_All right, I__'__m going to be honest with you now. _[Decreasing truth enhancement credibility in three. Two. One.]_ We__'__re all throwing you a party. There. I had to spoil the surprise we__'__ve been working on for months. Doctor Field is c__rying. I hope you__'__re happy."_

A bit more shuffling and his knees started to ache. He took a right turn, then a left, and hoped the system followed the rooms in some logical fashion. Like the maintenance areas, he had no doubt that this labyrinth ran throughout the entire facility, a blessing for someone who needed to avoid being seen by cameras.

Another grate, this time showing computers and monitors below. Looked promising. It came away in his hands and he dropped down into the small room. Empty, though he had expected nothing more. A sign on the door in front of him announced that no unauthorised personnel were allowed beyond that point. The card reader and number pad beside the handle said they weren't joking. Level seven access. Thank God Henry thought he needed such reassurance.

He had slipped the card in, finger hovering over the numbers, when movement from the test chamber caught his eye.

_Don__'__t look. _The voice tugged at him like a child on the arm of their parent. He brushed it away, pressed his face against the cold glass.

It could have been him down there, clutching a Weighted Storage Cube while the timer on the wall blinked down. He could have been the one shying from the bodies lying on the floor, sobbing as he heaved the cube onto a button and then screaming, clawing at the door when it refused to open.

The timer reached zero and yellow-green gas began to seep through ducts high on the wall panels.

_Walk away,_ his own voice said inside his head, _don__'__t watch, don__'__t watch, don__'__t –_

The man in the test chamber turned around, lab coat fluttering around his calves and tears carving through the dirty smudges on his cheeks. No one he recognised, but with the sudden kinship that shot through him they might as well have been brothers. Looking around the chamber, the man covered his mouth and nose with one sleeve and then raised his head up at the observation booth.

Their eyes met.

Hope and relief cracked the mask of despair on the man's face. He waved his arms and, though silenced by the glass, shouted words impossible to misinterpret.

_Help! Help me!_

"_You know," _GLaDOS hummed through the intercom on the wall, _"there__'__s still time for you to get down there and save __him. Neurotoxin takes four to six minutes to completely incapacitate a human. It takes less time with cats."_

"Damn it!" His fist hit the glass, bounced off. "Let him go! I- I'm _ordering _you to –"

"_It's funny just how ungrateful humans can be. Here I am, assuming control of the facility to keep you all safe from what's going on outside and all you can do is complain. And moan. And cry. Science doesn't stop for anything, even the end of the world. You all taught me that."_

The man kept waving, even though he surely knew he had been seen. False hope. How cruel. He knew he should walk away, open the door and flee into the dark, but bile fascination kept him rooted, hands on the glass. The neurotoxin thickened and the man stared at him, his mouth moving against the sleeve of his coat in what looked like pleas.

His slid down onto the floor of the booth, apologies lodged in his throat. All he could do was mouth the words back.

_I'm sorry._

Nothing he could do, but that thought didn't stop him from burying his face in his hands when the man tried to prise the door open again. With each passing second, his movements grew more sluggish. Before too long he had hunched over, coughing.

Six minutes passed far too slowly.

The man staggered, fell to the ground. His eyes rolled up, stayed fixed on him, accusing even as they glazed over. Even from the booth he could see the last rush of breath leave, tremors curling his hands into claws.

"_One last thing before I go and check up on the other test subjects." _The man stopped twitching. He turned away and vomited over the floor of the booth._"I am _not_ a robot."_

The number pad under his fingers. Wrong combination. Wrong again. The back of his throat burned, everything spinning in sick, bright colours like a fairground ride. He tried the combination again, and it seemed three times was indeed the charm. The door slammed behind him, plunged him into the dim half-light of the maintenance area. Tears stung. He didn't bother wiping them away.

Now he fled for peace, safety a hollow assurance. He needed silence, escape from the voices – both real and false. As he ran between chambers, Aperture's newest test subjects screamed through the walls around him.

"How can I? They couldn't do it, how do you expect me to –"

"Please, I have a family! Here, check my file –"

"You bitch! Fuckin' computer bitch! I hope they fry your – AHHHH!"

Those next few hours. Endless. Not even sleep granted him repose. He walked those steps in his dreams, still heard the begging, the sobbing.

Aperture. His home, his cage.

And now, most likely, his grave.

_-:-_

_He tumbled through a nova._

_Black shrouded him, pinpricks of red light fighting through the veil. Flashes of orange seared his eyeballs. He landed with slow grace, the ground an insubstantial void. Without a flicker of doubt, he knew that this was Aperture._

_Around him, unseen walls groaned. Eyes watched from the darkness, judging. He was on trial. Accusation: being alive. Even here he giggled. Hoped they found him guilty._

_Another sharp burst of orange, one that came from beyond this place. He tried to grab it but it skipped out of reach, zoomed away into the black. Sadness welled inside at its retreat and he cried out, the sound turning into a thrumming bassoon that resonated in the air. Aperture responded with a thousand wails from the mouths of the dead._

_Invisible hands touched his cheeks. A parental caress. Lips brushed his ear, and the words that flowed from them didn't just come from Henry or GLaDOS or Cube – they came from all of them. Every employee, every test chamber and wall panel, every storage cube and button. Even the foundations themselves._

_Aperture spoke to him._

"_Even if we fire you." A million voices. Accusing. Loving. "Even if you die."_

_-:-_

His eyes opened. The words still whispered through his head, fading like an echo. Fingers rubbed his eyes, limbs stiff from being hunched up. How long had he slept?

_Long enough._ Cube sounded impatient. _Now, look._

Blood on his shirt, his face. Who –

Chell.

He had forgotten about Chell.

Muscles ached as he jumped to his feet. He deserved that pain. How could he just have forgotten her? How could he have _slept _while she fought for her life right next to him? He looked down at the cardboard bed, stomach clenching when he saw it empty. Crumpled on the floor beside it was his lab coat. Panic turned his breathing into gasps.

"She's gone! Where did she go?"

_I don't know. I'm sure she'll be fine._

"She's hurt! She shouldn't even be moving –"

The words died in his throat when he turned around.

Pressed against the wall, she looked like one of his paintings – although no masterpiece came close to replicating her perfection. Even the torn, bloody jumpsuit somehow made her pale face all the more beautiful.

She didn't move, and, for the longest time, neither did he. The hand pressed against her side covered the gauze, but the slight hunch in her stance betrayed pain. She was frowning, suspicion mixed with fear. He didn't blame her. With blood smeared down his front, it looked as though he had butchered a deer. He held his hands up, edged forward and then stopped when she cringed away. What came from her throat was less a snarl and more a hiss of air.

"Chell?"

Her head tilted at his voice and he came forward again. This time she held her ground.

_Too bold,_ Henry told him after another few steps, amusement clear. He didn't care. He couldn't stop.

Like a snapped spring, she pounced. A hand curled around his neck, her weight driving him to the floor. Admiration and relief trumped self-preservation; he made no move to defend himself.

His angel was going to kill him. And he was going to let her.

_-:-_

**Once you go Aperture, you never go back... erture.**

**Big, big thanks to everyone who reviewed/favourited/alerted chapter 1. Hopefully I'll get chapter 3 out quicker than I did this one.**


	3. Chapter 3

_It is by suffering that human beings become angels._

_-Victor Hugo_

_-:-_

White wings rotted, the feathers charring black and curling like dead leaves. The angel of death straddled him, her hand pressing, but not crushing. Tendrils of hair escaped her messy ponytail and dangled in his face. He made himself meet her eyes. Grey twinned with blue, storm clouds breaking over the ocean. They raked over his face with a cold interest, a tiger studying its prey.

He had to look away.

_Don't let her!_ said Cube. _Not after all that. Not after you fought so hard to stay alive._

"Staying alive isn't the same as living," he whispered. Chell's fingers tightened, and again he met her eyes. "It would be kind." He sounded as though he had swallowed sand. The back of his mouth burned for water, but it didn't matter now. Thirst would be one of his last human experiences, right along with asphyxiation. No doubt GLaDOS would be thrilled when she found out. The last staff member reduced to another body rotting on the shiny floor of Aperture. The image wasn't exactly comforting, but the thought of peace, a way out of this madness, was far too tempting.

_Suicide's a sin_, Henry said in a memory, _but so is murder__._

_Poor Doctor Field. Do you think he made the right choice? _Another memory, the first thing GLaDOS had said to him when he dared use the security cameras to look into her chamber. For once, he didn't notice her. All he could see was Henry lying on the floor, his head –

He shuddered. That wouldn't be the last thing he saw in his mind. He needed something he had enjoyed, something beautiful. Chell shifted on top of him, and he realised he didn't need to look far. The hand had started to clamp down and his lips tingled with trapped blood. Their eyes met again and he tried his best to smile. _I don't hate you._ He raised a hand and ran his fingertips across her cheek. What did it matter now? He was going to die anyway –

No. He had been dead for a long time.

The world began to dim, black blooming at the edges of his vision. Grey dots swam, little fish that grew bigger and bigger, eating all the light. His body twitched, the primal instinct to survive kicking in, but frantic flails were reduced to tremors.

_Ye__ah, that's right, Doug, _Henry cooed, louder than usual. _We're all waiting for you. We can work together again. There's so many more experiments we can do, and we'll have an eternity to do them all –_

_No! _He felt Cube's panic, but there was nothing he could do now. Darkness rolled across his eyes. Henry grabbed his shoulder, pulled him down. Cube's wings pulled him up.

He didn't care which way he went. It was over.

Silence in his head.

At last.

Silence.

_-:-_

Noise.

Sensation.

Slick warmth spread across his shirt. Oil, something leaking oil. How could that be? Aperture hadn't used oil as fuel for decades. The choking pressure around his throat and the weight on his lower stomach had vanished. Light began to filter through the darkness, bit by bit. Breath rasped back into his lungs. Pain shot through his chest with the thud of his heart. The world appeared as a dirty-white halogen blob. When he blinked, the pictures on the wall materialised in stinging detail. He sat up, and the rush of blood to his head made the room spin. His neck felt swollen, bruised, and when he swallowed it was like trying to force a whole egg down his oesophagus. A sudden coughing bout scraped his throat raw and turned his mouth into a desert. Damn, now he really needed some water.

_Still alive!_ Cube chirped. A foul answer nearly found its way past the egg, but then he noticed the blood. All the blood. So much more than before. Fear drove a dagger of ice into his stomach. He was on his feet before the thought had registered and raised his head to look at Chell. What he saw almost turned it away.

She was leaning against the wall, hunched over and shaking. One hand smeared red over Schrödinger's cat and the other pressed against her side. As he watched, her face tightened, eyes closing and mouth opening as a spasm shook her body. Blood ran rivers down the orange jumpsuit and dripped onto the floor.

She didn't make a sound.

He snatched at a discarded medi kit and fumbled through band-aidsand tape. The wounds in her side must have torn open as she leaped on him. Damn, damn, _damn_ – he should have listened to Henry. Plastic wrappings tangled around his fingers. Why did the gauze and bandages have to be at the very bottom? Eyes followed his movements, narrowed by pain. Her breath came in hard pants, rattling like there was a piece of metal in her lungs. He hoped not. He could barely deal with lacerations; conducting full-blown operations would put him in a nervous coma.

Gauze – check. Now he just needed – bandages. Check. Next came the hard part.

He faced her, the corners of his mouth twitching downwards. The band of tight heat around his neck hadn't eased, but the egg had shrunk to a marble. When he spoke, his words rasped like sandpaper against old wood.

"I'm not hers."

Eyes watched him, bright with pain. Did she even understand what he was saying? He took a step towards her, stopped when she flinched back. Then took a breath. Another step.

_All the blood,_ moaned Cube. _Oh, God, how can you bear it?_

_It's just blood, you silly littl__e prop. Test subjects are full of it, they leak it all the time during experiments. This is no different. _Henry sounded sniffy.

Ignoring them hadn't worked for the past twelve years and it wouldn't work now. "Hush. Both of you. I need to concentrate." Chell bared her teeth at his voice and tried to shrink back further. Her back pressed flush against the wall, and those stormy eyes widened. He could almost hear her thoughts – _Trapped. No escape. Pain. Flee. _Although it tore him apart inside, losing her would be even worse.

_Gotta hurt to help,_ said Henry before slinking away. _And you _will_ hurt her._

It almost made him wish she was still unconscious. The gauze and bandages were crushed in his fist. No more hesitating. Hesitating could mean her death. Blood didn't care about feelings, it flowed where it could. The last few steps to her were crossed as quickly as he dared. Her face filled his vision, eyes still wide and lips parting as he leaned in close. Fingers slid the Aperture Science issue t-shirt up, trembled against the padding; he was shaking more than her. Couldn't touch. Had to touch. Hesitation would kill her. No more, _do something._ His hand wrapped around the one she held against her side (_so small, so soft_) and gauze dabbed the sodden bandages he had –

Pain cracked through the side of his face. His head snapped back and a cry burned his throat. Dots of colour burst like fireworks behind his eyelids. He blinked, shook his head to clear it just in time to see Chell raise her fist again.

For a person suffering severe blood loss, her physical abilities were still remarkably... physical. The second punch almost dislodged his hold and he felt a smooth trickle run from his nose. He hunched his shoulders, kept his hands pressing down. When he opened his mouth to ask her to stop, the next blow hit the side of his jaw. He stumbled backwards, but his hands gripped tighter.

They fell together, her body against his. His shoulders and back smacked against the floor. More bruises that wouldn't heal. She rolled off him and lay on her side, pain pinching her lips into a white line. Ignoring the ache in his back, he sat up and reached for the medi kit. A high-pitched whine cut through his ears and more blood dripped from his nose. He gave himself a quick check-over – nothing broken, just swelling and bruises. His teeth rattled when he turned his head, though whether that was from her punches or a lack of vitamin C he didn't know. He hoped for the former; scurvy was a hell of a way to go.

Flesh quivered under his hands. Her arms jerked as though she was trying to lift them, but soon dropped beside her head and stayed there. He snipped away the saturated bandages, aware of her eyes still fixed on him. That look of desperation and defiance felt so familiar. Where had he seen that before? Gauze blotted with red as he tried to remember. A tiger's gaze behind a storm…

A painting. No – several paintings. A wall of time hanging in Aperture's lobby, the first thing that greeted all new staff members. Cave Johnson glared at them from canvases, shrinking even the most rowdy scientist under his painted stare. Whoever the artist was, they deserved a medal. Each painting seemed ten years older than the last, beginning with a young, smiling man who seemed to know that he was surveying the latest batch of Aperture's recruits. _You belong to us now_. That smile had faded through the years. The last picture showed him pale, gaunt, dark rings under his eyes, knuckles white as he gripped the arm of his chair. The storm clouds seemed their darkest ever, lightning threatening to tear through them at any moment. _I will not die. I refuse to die._

"'And they die an equal death - the idler and the man of mighty deeds.'"

Chell stirred at his words, though he suspected that was probably because of his voice and not her recognition of Homer's _Iliad_. She most likely didn't even know that a world existed outside of Aperture's shiny white walls. He taped a section of gauze down and hoped that she wouldn't bleed through it. "Henry loved him," he said, the words awkward in the quiet room. Talking to a real person felt so strange. "Always wanted to be like him. In a way, he was. The same desire for results. The same disregard for –" _Human life_, he finished inside his head.

_But I always liked you, Doug. Yo__u were my favourite assistant, did you know that? _The ghost of Henry's hand lay on his shoulder. _I saved you. Out of all the brilliant minds in that room, I gave the key to safety to the scruffy little schizophrenic technician who was scared of other peopl__e. If I had such a disregard for life, why would I do that? Why would I help you?_

He closed his mouth. Henry hadn't known it would turn out the way it did. Those words were just wishful thinking on his part. He had been given the key card so he wouldn't panic and make a scene.

For the thousandth time in that room, he wondered if, at the very end, Henry had regretted it all.

Chell's arm lifted again, and it was his turn to flinch away. All she did, however, was lay her hand over the gauze he had taped down, delicate fingers examining the patch of cotton. Her eyes stayed on him, almost accusing, and he could see her make the connection. Maybe that would be enough to keep her from hitting him again. Her other arm braced against the floor. The breath caught in his throat, one hand going to her hip in warning. Surely she couldn't.

Lips curled away from her teeth as she hauled herself into a sitting position. Pain flashed across her face again, but behind it, determination sparked. He stood, took a step back and held his hands out, palms facing towards her. Now he just had to hope that she recognised body language. And language in general.

"I don't think you should do that. Please. You could rip the wound open again, and you really don't have that much blood left to lose. Look, just stay lying down, and I'll see if I can – no, don't try to –"

She rose to one knee, the heel springs clicking against the floor. Bloody fingers clenched, the index one on her left hand twitching almost spasmodically. Like a newborn fawn she wobbled to her feet before stumbling back down. Anxiety made him dart forward and her pointed glare sent him right back again.

Cube watched along with him, silently urging her on. Its excitement surprised him. She had killed it once.

_And you've killed me many times._

His lips pressed together hard and the corners of his eyes began to prickle. He sniffed, said nothing.

A smacking sound jolted his focus. She had made it to the wall and stood shaking, still watching him. The blood on her face had dried, and now he wanted to touch her, to wipe all that blood off and then keep touching. Her hand slapped the wall again and her lips curved upwards. That smile drew a frown from him. It wasn't a _real_ smile – it felt imitated, like a robot that had been given a picture and a theory but had no real feeling behind the movement. He cleared his throat, unsure of exactly what he wanted to say, and then tilted his head as her arm stretched out, palm open. That false smile had disappeared behind a blank veil. He took a step forward.

"What do you want?" Her brow furrowed and fingers twitched up in impatience. "Chell? Can you understand me? Can you talk?"

_She's broken._ Henry said, not without some glee.

"She isn't." What did she want? "Just… point. Can you do that?"

The hand remained outstretched. He swallowed, tried not to let the curl in his stomach overwhelm him. Henry couldn't be right. She was a thing of perfection – an angel. Angels did not break.

Her fist hit the wall this time. He jumped back, nearly tripped over his own feet. She held one finger up and then traced it around the gauze. Heat crept into his face. Of course. He stooped to pick up the bandages off the floor, still keeping his eyes on her, and then reached out his own arm. The cool silk of her skin brushed his as their fingers touched. It lit a fire in his cheeks. He wondered if the bare skin of her arm would be that silky, or her shoulder, neck, or further down –

Henry's disgust doused cold water over his emotions. _That's sick, Doug. She's __a test subject. You'd be better off going and fucking a turret instead of her. Try and have a little bit of dignity, will you?_

"I can think what I like –"

_No. You can't._

The urge to run to his locker and gulp down the last two pills had never been so strong.

Chell tied the ends of the bandage together and tucked the knot underneath. Tidy. He couldn't have done a better job. She looked strangely proud, like a child who had just learned how to tie her shoelace. It made him want to pat her arm, congratulate her. Stupid. She was an adult, was he really going to patronise her in such a way?

A sigh escaped her as she leaned against the wall, and, after another glare at him, closed her eyes. Relief swept through him. She wasn't bouncing around the room, or trying to pounce on him again – maybe they could, calmly, talk. Or rather, he would talk to her and she would stare at him like he was mad.

_You are mad. Do you think she can sense it, that huge fuck-up in your brain? Do you think she can tell you're a crazy man? _

_Leave him alone! _Cube was his little mongoose against the snake that Henry had become.

_I'm sorry, I don't talk to inanimate objects. You're not even real. You were never real._

_I'm real… aren't I? _

In the corner, Cube lay on its side, a nasty scar running through the exposed heart. He smiled, although his throat constricted around his next words.

"Of course you're real. As real as I am –"

Something bumped against his shoulder, knocked him against a wall. Dazed, he shook his head and blinked. What on earth was that? Had he been wrong, did Chell decide that he needed another throttling?

She still needed his help – there was no way he would die before he was absolutely sure she would recover. He spun, prepared to dart away if she went for him, but what he saw made him freeze. The lump in his throat came back with vengeance.

Elegant fingers stroked the dents and pitted scars that marred Cube's surfaces. A small, real smile on Chell's face made his hand clench, though not in anger. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She knelt down beside Cube, and the position reminded him of someone praying. The carpet wore out under his feet as he paced in the background. They both seemed so happy to see the other, so much so that he felt like an intruder on the scene, a stranger interrupting an emotional reunion between two friends.

Scents mingled in the air where she had rushed past him, sweat and blood weaving through one another. Delight and self-disgust fought an equal battle inside his body as he took a deep breath. Arousal, a sensation he thought buried for good, prickled in his groin. He bit the inside of his lip until it tasted sharp and turned his attention to other things. Chell had nearly died of blood loss. She needed water and food. His own body could go to hell.

Water first. Easy enough – Aperture had a water distilling tank used for certain tests, and he had managed to store much of it throughout the facility. GLaDOS had been most vocal about the exploration of exposing test subjects to environments in which their respiratory functions were hampered. Her hypothesis had been that they would solve tests quicker when experiencing the effects of drowning.

All the researchers managed to glean from those tests was a room full of dead subjects and a lot of wet turrets.

The small cupboards in the office had proved a godsend. He rifled through one, knocking away paint cans and brushes until he found the handle of one of the water containers. Heartbeat loud in his ears, he turned to Chell and Cube, clutching the water against his chest as though it were a precious child. Would she thank him, maybe offer him a smile? He cleared his throat and walked towards her, pausing for a fraction of a second after each step in case her body language told him to back off.

"I… thought you might like some water. It's clean. Quite lukewarm, but clean. You must be thirsty after doing those tests. And after your… accident." He sat the water container in front of her, blushing like a child offering flowers to a monarch. Cube purred as she stared at him, her fingers still moving across its surface. "I know how it feels to lose one. To be forced to kill it after it helped you. She's done it to me before. They come back, of course, but it's still so hard." Was that twitch of her lips a reflection of grief or mockery? Either way he retreated to a respectful distance and leaned against a wall. Staring at her so hard was probably detrimental to what he was trying to achieve, so he averted his eyes, pretended to examine the painting of Cube with wings.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her slender arm stretch out for the container. In a way it felt so wrong – like he was feeding a particularly skittish animal at the zoo. The last thing he wanted her to be was an animal. Angels were not broken, and they were not animals. She had to use both hands to lift it to her mouth, and for a moment he was terrified that she would rip her wound open again, but the look of contentment on her face when she took the first swallow set him at ease.

When he moved towards the cupboard again she set the water down and tensed, tracking his movements. He spared her one quick glance and then turned his attention back to the cupboard. A thick file lay on one shelf, the pages tattered, smudged, and curling in the corners. Her file. All the words, charts and graphs were tattooed inside his memory. An old photo glared at him from the page, matched the one she wore so frequently.

Chell. Last name redacted.

His finger brushed the photograph, touched her printed face. Even back then, she had been beautiful. The interview he could recite without looking, (and he would be lying if he didn't admit to doing just that a few times) and every time it gave him strength.

_Why should Aperture Science accept you as a research vol__unteer, and would anyone file a police report if you went missing?_

_HR Notes: Subject refused to answer._

_Do you have any self-esteem issues that could hinder/assist scientific research, and if not, would you be willing to create some?_

_HR Notes: Subject refused to answer._

_Are you aware that we accept lack of answers as consent?_

_HR Notes: Subject refused to answer. _

The bruises around his neck throbbed. Saliva drenched his mouth in the effort to rehydrate. He looked up from the file, saw Chell was still drinking, and bent his head to the paper again. He could wait.

_Subject shows abnormal levels of tenacity. She never gives up. Ever. Testing would defeat purpose of research, and a recorded hostility test yielding 98.52% shows subject could realistically prove a threat to other subjects/staff/facility. HR Notes: Subject had to be sedated for three hours of hos- test. Recommend a repeat with stronger restraints._

_Rejected. Do __NOT__ test. _

Underlined for emphasis. Someone had been scared of her.

Soft footsteps scuffed against the carpet. Before he could look up again, the file was snatched from his hands. He blinked, almost took a step backwards. She fled back to the corner with Cube, holding the file above her head as though in triumph of her little skirmish. To his surprise, he nearly went after her. That file had seen him through some difficult times, and if she tore it up–

No. She had a right to see it.

Her eyes flicked over the pages. Left to right, drop, then left to right again. She could read.

A gush of breath left him, relief weakening his knees. She still retained the mental capacity to recognise letters and words, but did she understand what he was saying? He opened his mouth to ask her, and then noticed how her brow furrowed and lip curled.

Her eyes rose to his. She lowered the file.

Under that cold gaze, instinct made him shrink back against the wall. Orange and red blurred, grew closer. His own eyes found a spot on the floor to focus on. Apologies rotted on his tongue. There was nothing he could say to make it better. She had read their crimes against her, and she would judge him.

A piece of paper was thrust in his face. He flinched, then drew back. The page had come from the file, her details bulleted down the side. Height. Weight. Age. Method of acquisition.

_We tore her away from everything, and it was so sweet to watch. Like ripping a baby from a womb. Oh, you should have been there, Doug. You should have seen her _eyes_._

Henry's increasing vitriol scared him more than the thought of GLaDOS finally entrapping him in a test chamber. What was wrong with him?

_You're getting closer, _said Cube.

"To what?" Chell waved the paper in front of him again. He took it from her, but his attention was on Cube.

_To the edge. _

_Yes. You don't know how __right you are, little prop. _Henry slithered around his mind, pale coils insubstantial, but constricting nonetheless.

"This will be over before then." Childish wishing. He looked at the paper, Chell's finger jabbing at the top line.

_Subject name: Chell [REDACTED]. _

Someone had been scared of her, and someone, maybe the same person, had wanted her to disappear into the system.

Strands of black hair fell across her face as she watched him. Sweat and blood reached his nose again and his heart thudded hard inside his chest. He started breathing through his mouth.

"I don't know who you were – _are_." Her lips pressed together and one hand clenched into a fist. "I'm sorry. I- I looked. I tried to. They changed it years ago, purged a lot of things from the records. I couldn't even recover it using Cave Johnson's details." The next words were considered very carefully. "I think you were someone important. Or you threatened Aperture somehow. Have you heard of Black Mesa?"

A blank stare.

"Do you remember anything before you woke up in the Enrichment Centre?"

Her expression didn't change.

He sighed and eased his body away from her. The painting of Angel Chell graced the wall in front of him. He fought the urge to run a hand over it. "I'm one of the people who did this. So if you want to leave, you can. I won't try and stop you." The lump in his throat was back. Tears prickled. He closed his eyes, rested his forehead against the angel's stomach. "This has to end. And if it means anything, I'm sorry it had to be you."

Cool plaster soothed hot skin. He could smell the dry paint against his nose. Any moment now, the door would whoosh open and she would vanish back into the bowels of Aperture.

And he would be alone again.

"I'll be all right," he whispered against the wall, "I'm always all right. Always alone and always right. Lucky, lucky rats. You can't fire rats. Just make them run the maze again and again and again until they fall down–"

The tears ran. He braced his hands against the wall and gritted his teeth. "But the maze doesn't have an end. A circle. Infinity. It happens again. You'll leave like he did. You'll leave, and then everyone will die. I told him not to go. I… I tried. I didn't want anyone to die!"

He turned, saw her standing just feet away. Through the blur of tears, her head tilted at him, face a smudge of colour. "Don't leave." The quiver in his voice made him cringe. Clinging to her like a child with its favourite toy was –

_Pathetic, Doug. Really. _

"I'm sorry." He didn't know who he was apologising to. Chell frowned, but, after wiping away the tears, he couldn't see any real anger in it. She stalked back over to Cube, stroking the metal with sincere devotion. His eyes followed the movements her hands made. Fingertips trailed over the scars and bullet holes. He had scars. Maybe she would touch him like that –

_Focus_, said Cube. _There's other things to do here, and it's getting harder to hold on to you. _

It was right. She didn't seem to be going anywhere for the moment.

Hunger rolled inside him, thunderous in its demands. He picked up the water container and sated the barren desert in his mouth, drinking and drinking until his stomach felt full. His head cleared a little, and he managed to force away all the buzzing energy between his legs. Definitely not the time for things like that.

The cupboard again, and this time his hand disappeared even further inside. One thing that really hit home in the past few months was how the value of things changed. Life was no longer about the thrill of creation, or promotions, or pay checks. When it came down to it, very few things really mattered.

He withdrew his arm. This. This little tin can. All the money in the world couldn't make him part with it. All the scientific knowledge of the future wouldn't force him to give it up.

And he was going to hand it over to her in a heartbeat.

Knees creaking, he sat on the floor a couple of metres from her, placed the can between them and crossed his legs. She watched, wary. For a while, he didn't move. Staring might have upset her, so he let his eyes run over Cube, the floor and the wall. His hands rested on his knees, palms up and open in placation. Weaponless. Not a threat. No reason to panic.

Seconds inched by, stretching into minutes. The nervous hunch of her shoulders eased. She began to look at the can more than at him.

"You're hungry after all those tests, right?" Her gaze flicked to his face as he spoke. "This is my last can. I'm sorry. If I had more…"

_If I had more, I would still give you every last one. _

He took the tin, hands shaking for a different reason than her proximity, pulled the ring tab back, then peeled the lid off.

A summer's day cocooned in metal. Juice. Fruit trees. He was eight again. The only false voices were the ones he gave to the townspeople as Godzilla rampaged around Legoville. Peach trees grew wild in the garden, the heat turning the fruit on the branches until the boughs bent under their weight. They would pluck them off, he on his father's shoulders to reach the highest, then bite through the velvet and into the sweet mush beneath.

He glanced down at the sunny segments in their syrup, and the smell bloomed up at him like an invisible flower. A tight groan left his throat. His stomach yowled back, demanding sustenance that had been denied by water. It would be so easy to take a couple, just a couple. He could almost taste them – sugary and slick in their own juice. Chell shifted. He hadn't even realised his hand was halfway to the can. Trembling, he pulled back, clenched his jaw against the flood in his mouth.

Light flashed off the tin as she raised it. Nostrils quivering, she took a deep, delicate sniff and blinked as though surprised. A smile cracked his chapped lips.

"I know, they're nice. Go ahead. All for you."

Suspicion narrowed her eyes, but the rim touched her mouth anyway. One sip and she paused, regarded the contents again, and then threw her head back, throat bobbing as she gulped. Her eyes closed. A trickle of syrup slipped down her chin, her neck. He swallowed hard.

Lips swollen and breathing fast, she placed the can back on the floor. Her tongue swiped over the wayward juice on her chin.

The threads of the carpet seemed incredibly interesting today.

Metal scraped against cotton. The tin appeared in his view. He frowned, looked up at her. She stared back, raised her eyebrows as though his unspoken question was obvious. Half the peach segments were still there. He pushed it back to her.

"I can't."

A palm slapped the ground. He didn't relent. "No. You need it more than I do."

She stood, face blank, and walked past him. He grabbed the tin, wobbling as he got to his own feet. "Chell – wait a moment." Her back to him, eyes on his paintings. "Wait. Here, have the rest, please." He offered the tin. All she did was cross her arms, regarding the pictures like a critic at an art gallery. He sighed, risked another look in the tin. Those peaches looked so good…

Cube whispered, afraid she would overhear. _You can't make her eat. And if she wants you to have some, maybe yo__u should. _

"It wouldn't be right. It doesn't matter what happens to me."

_Ultimately, what does matter? _

"That she lives."

_That matters to you. Maybe to her, it matters that _you_ live. _

Red against orange. She bled because of what they did. He would be a fool to entertain the idea that she cared for him, that she reciprocated his desires. Going down that path would only lead to disappointment.

He would keep her as an angel. Untouchable. Something to be worshipped, not lusted after.

_And there's the matt__er of your contract, _Henry said, fangs poised. _I think 'fucking test subjects' is pretty high up on the list of shit that gets your ass kicked out. Why don't you do yourself a favour. For once. Take her to a test chamber. Let's test her again. For Apertur__e. Think of all the data we could gather from such a tenacious little girl –_

Sugar burned on his tongue, down his throat.

Slices of pleasure slid into his mouth. Too fast to taste. Not enough time to chew.

Metal bent under clutching fingers. Tears.

Moans vibrated his body. Warmth spread from his stomach and set fire to the tips of his fingers. Lava boiled through his veins.

Energy filled him to the brim, overflowed.

He lived.

_**-:-**_

He was still holding the can to his mouth long after the final drop of syrup had vanished.

Sheer will forced his hand down. His panting sounded more like sobbing. Pleased, his stomach gave a final gurgle and then fell silent, setting about digesting its first proper meal in months.

Henry slithered back to a hole in his mind. No doubt there would be ramifications for the interruption, but at that moment he didn't care. His brain seemed to have overdosed him on endorphins. A smile tugged the corners of his lips up. This was because of her. She definitely needed thanking.

Her finger, tapping again. This time on one of the paintings. He focused on it, glad to see it stayed motionless on the wall. Cake. A slice of chocolate cake with a cherry balancing on top. The smile on his face threatened to morph into laughter.

"Do you know what I went through to get those peaches? I think cake's off the menu for now."

She shook her head, tapped again and then shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh." The flare of endorphins shrank into a flickering flame. "You want to know what that's all about."

Face blank, she blinked at him. He hoped that was her way of affirmation.

"She – uh, you know, _her_ – she asked us for a motivation. You know. For… test subjects." He scratched a white drop of paint from the wall. Couldn't look at her. "It was supposed to be a joke. What do human females love more than anything else? What would make them run through turrets and across toxic water? Cake. It was supposed to be a joke, that's all." His throat tightened, made his voice thick. "Just a joke."

She certainly wasn't laughing. Nor were the hundreds who came before her.

_(We're still here.) _

The flame dwindled to a tiny spark.

He kept his eyes on his finger, still scratching though the paint drop had gone. If he looked up and saw disgust on her face, or hatred, GLaDOS wouldn't have to chase him around the facility. He would find a test chamber to sit in, and wait for the neurotoxin to seep out of the walls all by himself.

Flesh against feathers. Her fingers traced each one. Skin, almost as pale as white paint, brushed the wings on the wall. Daring to raise his head, he saw the way she bit her lip and peered up at her angel portrait from beneath black strands. It wasn't hard to deduce her thoughts. Sprouting wings had been a dream of his even before he had become trapped in this place. Who didn't want to fly?

When they touched the painted GLaDOS, Chell's fingers stopped, then snatched away. She stepped back and looked at him, eyes wild.

"It's all right. She can't reach us here."

Her gaze went to all corners of the room. Not convinced. "Trust me, if she could I would be dead long before now. These are the maintenance areas. Not AI controlled, thank God, but she tries her hardest."

Suspicion resurfaced. She returned to Cube. Her arms wound around its frame, lifting and hugging it against her chest. Frost covered his heart, chilled all the way down to the pit of his stomach and turned the peach remains to ice. Fear of being too close to her and too far away warred inside him. He held up his hands. One of the scattered pages of her file lay at his feet, a graph detailing her tenacity level. He swept it aside with his foot.

"Please." Henry snorted at his begging, the sound closer than it had ever been. "Please don't take it away."

Narrowed eyes went to Cube, back to him, and then to the door.

"It's all I have."

Her consideration lasted a lifetime. Cube said nothing, and he felt a little hurt by its silence. Did it prefer her?

Henry smiled inside his head. _Something like that, Doug. _

A whimper drove up his throat. He forced it down, the bitter aftertaste chasing away any lingering memory of the peaches. Her eyes gleamed. Under the lights, and with the white walls all around them, they contained tiny moons. She stepped towards him, so close that he could hear every breath she expelled, see the fibres of her t-shirt and how the blood soaked through them. Close enough to study the lines of her face.

An edge of Cube pushed into his chest. He grunted, blinked down at it. She pushed with a little more force. Teeth against her lip again, and this time it was her eyes that couldn't meet his. Stars glittered around the moons. Guilt ripped a hole in his stomach, filled it with ice. How could he make her understand?

The stars fell. She placed Cube on the floor at his feet, a hand patting the metal sides. A moment's pause, and she lay a kiss against one of the hearts. It nearly broke his.

She stood straight and almost military, arms at her side and her chin tilted up. The stars had left sparkling trails in their wake, but no more tumbled from the heavens. Expression leached from her face. She passed him, her shoulder brushing against his, left him trembling and staring at the wall. Schrödinger's cat blinked, the movement in slow, jerking frames. The flames around Angel Chell's legs crept higher.

He turned. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. Something in his ear whispered

_(Shhhhh.) _

and the words wouldn't come.

Her hands on the doorframe. Face towards him. Orange and white and red, red, red. The world smelled of smoke and ash, sullied the white with its mere presence.

He stretched out his arm towards her, what he wanted to say lodged and tangled in his throat like barbed wire. Legs took him one step, then stumbled him onto a knee. The orange and red faded into the darkness. Her eyes were the last things to leave him – storm clouds heavy with pity.

Then darkness.

A scream filtered through the barbed wire as a choking squeak. His arm ached, stayed outstretched. She might come back, burst back through the doorway any second, gather her in her arms and say –

_It's over, Doug. Go to sleep. _

Just a voice. Could have been Henry, or Cube, or neither. He didn't care.

Painted flames turned painted legs to dust. Angel Chell threw her head back in a scream, wings scraping the walls in repetitive motions like the kicking legs of a dying deer. Schrödinger's cat jumped out of the box.

He gathered Cube up, sat in the corner. Eyes pressed against cold metal until muddy greens and yellows swirled behind his lids.

Smoke and ash.

And voices.

He blocked his ears. Didn't help. They nudged him, whispering and shouting all at once. Individual words were hard to discern, but the tone slipped into his chest and froze his heart. A sob rose, spluttering from him.

They clamoured. They shrieked. They swirled around him, everywhere and nowhere.

And then they stopped.

He didn't know how long he waited. When he opened his eyes, the world was a blur and an ache penetrated his head. Colours danced against white. His paintings.

"Doug."

Rapid blinking was slow to clear his vision, so he closed his eyes once more. Still silent. The ache disappeared. He dared to look.

Henry knelt in front of him. The bullet hole at his temple dribbled a steady stream of blood down his face and on to the collar of his labcoat. Mist plumed in brown irises.

He was smiling.

"Saddle up, Doug," he said, offering his hand. "Time to go."

_-:-_

**No, I am very much alive. Thanks to everyone who kicked my ass via PM's and reviews (or even psychic thoughts) and just everyone who reviewed/favourite/alerted. Hell, even if you just read it, that's great. Hope you enjoyed it. :) Beta'd by Maiafay, who catches those missing commas for me!**

**I wanted to write some observations (and excuses) about this chapter, but they're too long for this A/N. So I stuck it on the version of this chapter that is now on my DeviantArt page. Link's in my profile, if you are burning with desperation to see what I think.**


	4. Chapter 4

-:-

_There are faces that come to me  
>In my darkest secret memory<br>Faces that I wish would not come back at all_

-Johnny Cash_, Like a Soldier_

-:-

"_Doug… are you there? I- I know you're there. You have to help me – she's kept me alive, but I'm not sure for how much longer. If you come in here, you can save me, then we'll take her down. Doug, we can end this –"_

Anglerfish attracted their prey with bioluminescence. Pitcher plants relied on bright pigment and nectar secretions. GLaDOS liked to use her own methods of trying to lure him in.

"How mad does she think you are?" Henry tilted his head at the speaker in the wall when they passed. Blood trickled from his nose. Doug looked away, then down at his feet. He counted his steps as they clinked on the metal grill of the floor. Henry's didn't make a sound. The world tilted, warped around, and then sprung back. Another speaker spat static up ahead.

"_Doug, help! Quick!"_

When Henry laughed, threads of Cave Johnson's deep chuckle wove through his voice. The clipboard and pen in his hand appeared out of thin air. "I don't sound like that, do I?" The nudge Henry gave his shoulder went straight through. "You think I sound like that?"

Fifty-four steps. Fifty-five.

Cube stayed silent in his arms.

He wondered what Chell was doing. Maybe she had found a way to the surface. Maybe she was trapped in another test chamber. Maybe she was dead. He looked at Henry out of the corner of his eye. The bullet hole had stopped leaking. Blood and other fluids crusted in a line down Henry's white coat.

"Why did you have that gun?"

Henry's pen became a pistol in his hand. "In case of emergency," he said, placed the barrel to the wound, and shot himself again.

Hands trembling, he looked away. "You should have shot me first."

"Don't pretend you want to die." Something in Henry's neck clicked as he turned his head. The mist in his irises had spread, coved his eyes in a white film. The bullet hole seemed to flex, then rotted around the edges, became a little wider. "You're like a little cockroach, aren't you, Doug? You haven't starved to death, GLaDOS couldn't kill you – fuck!" He laughed again and this time the blood spurted from both nostrils, turned to dust when it landed on the floor. "You couldn't even kill _yourself_ properly! Failing at suicide, now that's really something. Let me tell you, you might be good at fixing things, but you were stupid enough to cut _across_, weren't you? Not nearly deep enough. Should have cut down. Should always cut down. And deep"

His body shook, every protest and denial dying on his tongue. He didn't want to die. He did want to die. He should die.

_Chell._

Cube spoke so quietly he wondered at first if the word had simply been the sound of a piece of discarded metal hitting something far away, or the peep of a nearby turret.

_She's here, Doug. She's real. She needs you._

It was so hard to keep anything solid in his head. Chell's face melted into Henry's, into Cave Johnson's. Her soft hands became metallic pincers, and her eyes turned yellow, rolled together into a single optic lens. He squeezed Cube in his arms.

"I can't do this, I can't –"

Henry raised his eyebrows, his skin now a pale grey. "We're not that far now, Doug," he said, sounding for all the world like a parent encouraging their child to walk, "just a little bit more, and it'll all be over. Won't that be nice?" He grinned and several teeth fell out, vanishing before they hit the floor. "Now, _move_."

His feet dragged him along, up stairs and across walkways that spanned the yawning abyss of Aperture. Henry glided beside him, wraithlike, whistling something that sounded like 'Blue Moon'. Whispers from the walls accompanied him like an invisible choir. Through the speakers, Henry still howled. Had he screamed before he pulled the trigger, or was GLaDOS just replicating his voice?

Three hundred steps.

Three hundred and one.

Everything wobbled, wavered. He grabbed the handrail and hunched over. Nausea slimed at the back of his throat.

The man at the end of the walkway watched.

"Even at the top, even at the very bottom. We all die." Henry said, perched on the railing. "Why should you be any different?"

The man at the end of the walkway watched.

Doug fell to his knees, fingers clenched into the grill. He squeezed, felt the cold, the bite of metal. "If we all die… then so can GLaDOS." He couldn't see Henry's smile, but sure as hell felt it.

"She builds herself out of herself. Any flaws are repaired with a single thought and any defects… well. _You_ can't rip that thing out of your head, can you?"

"Not for lack of trying." The rail made a nice little support for him to haul himself to his feet. In front of him, Henry blurred. "I… don't care what you think. You're not even real."

"And memories are?" Henry waved a hand at the man at the end of the walkway.

"Memories happened."

"_I _happened. Besides, you're the last one left. If you see me, who's to say you're wrong? Tree falling in the forest, and all that. If I'm wrong

_then why are you following me?_

Next to the man now, Henry beckoned him forward with one withering arm. _Is it your self-destruction, are you finally tired of being alone? I could quote you a thousand studies on human social interaction. Studies that you already know. Talking to ghosts isn't the same as being with living people, is it?_

Aperture spun past, lights and white walls. "It's almost as terrifying."

Cave Johnson stepped from the last painting hung in Aperture's lobby, slipped through Henry's skin. Paper-thin skin clung to his bones, veins raised like ropes wrapped around his hands. Tufts of white hair looked like they could fall out with a single brush. Mortality. Decaying organs and bones bound in skin and cloth, kept alive by just a spark in the brain.

"You ever had a pet, kid?" The pen became a cigar. "Like a dog, maybe a little kitty?"

He dragged himself closer. The other man's lab coat was smeared with blood, obscuring the name on the ID tag hung around his neck. Dead eyes stared at him. Fingers trembled. His mouth opened, formed the words _help me_.

"You ever seen 'em about to die? When they stop eating, and they just go and curl up in some corner, or under the stairs? They got the good grace to know when to damn well quit. To stop."

The man without a name watched him. Aperture watched him.

"People – now, _people_… God, they want to live, don't they? They find out they're dying, and they just…" The cigar fell to the floor. "She… she promised to look after things when I was gone. Did I make her? Did she want it? Is she all right down there, in her little shell? Does she know who the girl is?"

He walked away from both of them, Cube crushed to his chest.

_We can still make it out, _it said, voice faded. _We can still escape._

"I'm going to."

A speaker fizzed. GLaDOS purred.

"_Think about this: your actions have led to the deaths of eight hundred and thirty-three Aperture Science test subjects. I only killed five hundred and fifteen employees. So, who's the bigger monster here? Perhaps I should take out your brain, defective as it is, and place it inside a mechanical test droid. You'd be the perfect killing machine." _He couldn't decide if her sigh was of longing or resentment. _"Nothing is as good at killing as a human." _

He wasn't even aware of pressing the button. A headache bloomed and the words forced themselves from between his teeth. "We're better at taking things apart."

Her reply was lost when Henry slid in front of him. Shrunken in his head, his eyes looked like two dried grapes. "That's enough. No more waiting, Doug, I want that report by yesterday."

"Yes, sir." His hand found the wall, slid across when he walked. "One more flight, right? One more level?"

"One more," Henry said as blood dripped from his sleeve, his ears.

"Hello? Hi! Is someone- someone out there? Anyone?"

His breath stopped. A door fuzzed into existence to his left. That voice wasn't a ghost.

"I don't want to interrupt or anything, it's just that I've been stuck in this room for _ages_." A small laugh. "Getting a bit bored, to tell you the truth. Haven't seen a soul for a long time. Do you – do you want to open the door?"

The voice was familiar. He swallowed, tried to ignore the trembling in his hands. Another survivor, another man. Another living person. Henry met his eyes. Maybe another survivor. He cracked open the door. Musty air whooshed into his lungs. He put his mouth to the crack.

"Are you alive?"

Silence from the room, then: "I… think so. I hope so. I just checked. I feel alive, but then again, who really knows, right?"

"Are you _real_?"

"Um. Bit of a strange question. Yeah. Pretty sure I'm real. Let me just… yeah. Yeah, I'm real. Are you coming in? I promise not to bite." The man let out a chuckle. " I can't, but- ah, you know what I mean."

He took a deep breath, heart pounding. _Another survivor!_ His brain kept yelling, _another one! Maybe more than one!_ One sharp push, and the door opened.

He stared.

Kept staring.

Attached to a rail, the sphere stared back, the bottom half of its blue optic lens closed as though it was smiling.

"Hello!"

He turned around. Closed the door.

"Hey – hey! Come back! Please? I'm sorry if I… if I scared you. I'll try to be less intimidating if you want. I think I saw a blanket in here somewhere… if I put it over myself, will you come back in? No? What if I hid behind one of these crates – or I could wear a mask. Do you have a mask?"

Cube fell to the floor. The door was against his back. He slipped down it, nails curling against the floor. A sob hitched in his throat, then another. His hands came up as the tears stung. No survivor. Just a sphere. Alone. Still alone.

_Alone on an Aperture Science-approved sea,_ said Cube, _pick me up._

"A-are you crying out there? I didn't think I looked _that_ bad. I haven't seen a bloody mirror in forever, though. Maybe I'm hideous. Hm." Now he just felt guilty. Henry glared, jerked his thumb at the corridor. Doug sighed, picked up Cube and stood up. From behind the door, the sphere still nattered on.

"Look – don't want to rush you or anything, but I do have a _fairly_ important job to do. Very… very important. Was going to be down in manufacturing, but that didn't exactly work out. Lot of people have a grudge against me. For some reason. I dunno. Crazy. Anyway, I'm supposed to be in charge of all the suspended test subjects, but this bloody management rail's stuck. Can you… can you come in here, help me out?"

"Don't help it," Henry said, and one of his eyes turned to dust, left a black pit in his skull. "It's a waste of time. We have more important things to do than look after an idiot sphere."

Doug turned back towards the door. He licked his lips, heard Henry snort behind him. "You're the intelligence dampening sphere."

"Oh." The sphere seemed to consider this. "Am I? What's one of those, then?"

"You were made to –" _Slow GLaDOS down._ "You were made to take care of the test subjects. Yes."

"Brilliant! So, what say you help me out?"

He opened the door, tried to stop the disappointment from rising again. Alone, with a ghost, a cube and now an intellectually-challenged sphere.

"That's better! See? I'm not going to hurt you. We're not all… not all violent psychopaths, not like her, anyway. I don't have any neurotoxin, or any turrets. Nothing. Not a sausage. You know, if you give the ol' management rail a smack with something, I think I can wriggle free. Try the cube there."

Cube's offence rose like a wave of hot, prickly air. _Hey!_

"Hush. We might as well help it. We can ask if it's seen her."

"Ohhh…kay." The sphere tilted and swung back on the rail. "You're talking to yourself there. Not really a good sign, is it, that? Is there… some sort of senior engineer you could get to help me out? Do you have the proper qualifications for this – or, _or,_ there's health and safety to think about! You might get a chunk of cube in your eye, and I definitely wouldn't want that –"

Cube hit the sphere, then the attachment to the rail, with a metal clunk.

"Ow!"

_Ow!_

"Sorry." He picked cube up, dusted it off. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I think you fixed it." With a rattle, the sphere slid across the rail. "Weyhey! You did it! Ah, that's brilliant, that is. Great. Thanks for that."

"Have you seen another human? A woman?" The world tilted again. Henry's anger blazed inside his head, a writhing mess of yelling that ranged from '_c'mon, Doug, got stuff to do',_ to '_you useless fucking shit, move your ass! You think you're getting paid to stand around and talk?'_.

"Another human? Ah… no. No, not for a good couple of months. Remember, I said that? Sorry."

A deep breath blew from his lungs. Maybe Chell hadn't come this way at all**.** "If… if you see her, can you tell her… No. Wait. It doesn't matter."

"Right! If I see a woman, tell her 'No, wait, it doesn't matter.' Got it. Anything else?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "No. It's… thank you. Goodbye."

"Oh, you're leaving?" The sphere clanked across the rest of the rail, then back again. It stared at the floor. "Thought we could maybe hang out, you know, just relax in here for a little bit. I mean, I said I got a job, but I don't think a couple of minutes are going to matter that much, are they?"

"I have something I need to do."

"Oh."

"Sorry."

"Yes. Well. If you see the guys who are supposed to come and dust my nuts and bolts, tell them they're late, would you?"

"…Sure."

The air crawled thick over his skin when he shut the door. Henry had made that sphere, GLaDOS's supposed conscience. How well that had worked out. It added half a picosecond to the inhibition of her lethal abilities, but killing them all had been a mixture of a brilliant and a terrible idea.

_Besides, you can always ignore –_

"C'mon, Doug. We're so close now, so very close."

_your conscience._

He took one step forward, looked at Henry, his bullet hole decaying and leaving his skull shining under the lights, and then took another.

_-:-_

She ran a diagnostics scan across her system for the six thousand, seven hundred and ninety-seventh time that day. Nothing abnormal, as expected. The surface scan revealed a family of skunks, several mice, a few rats, and a synth tripod creature, along with several… not-humans. She magnified in on the tripod. Three sets of blue compound eyes scanned everything and the legs moved the creature along with all the grace of a deer. Interesting. A machine, but not a machine. What kind of tests could she make for such a creature? Perhaps some sort of timed jumping maze, or maybe test its resistance to neurotoxin against that of humans.

They tramped closer, the not-humans twitching their guns in all directions and the tripod crushing the undergrowth. Their boots stamped against the tarmac of the parking lot. The tripod yowled; a deep, resonating noise that sounded like a mechanical whale.

Half of her watched. The other half –

"_Not much further. The whole- is the sum of the parts- squared, multiplied, subtract the human element, divide by the times you watch someone die –"_

If she could roll her single eye, she would have.

The human male was a minimal threat. He could forage for beans and water all he wanted, ultimately his own mind would kill him, or a lack of vitamins, proteins or calories in general. Six hundred calories was the limit. The male was consuming slightly less than that, five hundred and fifty-three, (according to the daily mean average and rounded to the nearest whole number) if her calculations were correct. They usually were.

The female, though…

It took three picoseconds to access the camera of the test chamber. The test subject was using the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device to move a Weighted Storage Cube across a room. As GLaDOS focused on her, the subject shot a portal at the ceiling, then one at the floor. She picked up the cube and let it fall into the portal on the floor. It fell through the one on the ceiling, then back through the one on the floor. Again and again. GLaDOS accessed the communicator for that test chamber.

"You know who else enjoys repetitious movement and bright colours? Infants. Maybe I should paint rainbows in all the test chambers. Who knows, perhaps it would help you solve the tests faster."

The female's lips twitched down, and her eyes narrowed at the camera. A hostile response. Almost enough to make her euphoric testing response twitch.

On the surface, the tripod and the not-humans had moved on after poking around the entrance to Aperture. She would have to devise some sort of trap, some way of luring some of them down there. Maybe there was a way to tap into their radio waves and send out a distress signal. Her audio detector picked up more words from the maintenance areas.

"_All those eyes. I can see them in the walls. Did I paint them, Henry? Are they watching us – STOP staring at me!"_

She called up the electronic personnel files, made a small addition.

_Increased dialogue during schizophrenic episodes at the rate of three words to one. Fixation with eyes and being watched – typical delusion for paranoid schizophrenics. Also highly accurate._

If only she had asked Doctor Field to install cameras behind the walls while he hooked up the pipes for the neurotoxin.

"_What's down there?"_

She buzzed a sigh, turned off the external cameras. The male could chatter to himself like a senile simian all he liked, _she _was the one who had to do all the work around the facility and keep track of the test subject. There wasn't even much time to work on the Arial Faith Plate. GLaDOS ran another diagnostic scan. Six thousand, seven hundred and ninety-eight. Everything clear. Back to the test chamber.

The empty test chamber.

_-:-_

"What's down there?"

_You know what._ Henry's voice rasped inside his head. He turned to look at him. No lips, no tongue. Skin clung to bones by dried blood. Empty eye sockets stared at him. If he had his paints, he could give Henry some nice new eyes. Maybe green, or yellow.

"The beginning."

_And the end. _

He peeked over the rail. Down, down, down, further than he could see, down until the end was a pinprick of black.

Old Aperture. Now he knew why they were up there.

_Can you hear them?_ Henry glided over the rail, hovered in mid-air over the pit. _The beginning and the end, all waiting for that final piece. It would be selfish to deny them, don't you think? How are they supposed to rest when you keep giving them life?_

"No one cared about me." The pit gaped, blinking camera eyes staring up at him. "No one. I was just that weirdo who couldn't eat in front of people, couldn't talk to anyone I didn't know, liked to work behind the walls instead of hanging around in the labs. I lied when I said I had too much work to do when you invited me to your house for dinner. It wasn't because I hated you, it was because I couldn't." In Henry's hand, the gun reappeared. "You knew I was lying. You didn't care enough to push me."

_Now it's my fault? _Henry's body swung from side to side like a cat's tail.

"No." It would be useless to assign blame anyway. How did you punish the dead? "I'm just saying that I don't think they're waiting for me."

_We were all part of this. You too. Your place is set as much as mine was._

"Part of something bigger."

_Exactly._

_No!_ Cube squealed in his arms. _Don't listen to him, he's not real, he's –_

Henry darted closer, glided through the air like a snake. _Doug,_ he said, and turned his rotting head towards him with a creak, _this is where you have to let go of the past. You can always kill your conscience._

His arms came up, placed Cube on the rail. Henry hissed approval through a hole in his throat, and when his desiccated fingers touched the sleeve of Doug's lab coat, he swore that he could feel Henry this time. Not a ghostly wisp of touch, but the tips of bones poking into his arm. He swallowed and let his eyes graze over Cube, all the scratches and dents, scorch marks and paint. The back of his hand stroked over one of the hearts. A companion cube in every sense of the word.

_Do it now, now, now,_ Henry growled, his voice thumping in time to the throbbing in Doug's head. He wasn't strong enough to resist. _Now, now, now, nownownownownowNOWNOWNOWNOW –_

He gulped air. A sob. "I'm sorry."

_I love you._

Always had, always would. He pushed, tears in his eyes.

A long, long time of no noise. Then one final thud, so faint it could have been the beat of his heart. Nothing in his head, no voice, no sense of _Cube_. Nothing there. Alone now. All, all alone.

_You're in Aperture, with us. You've never been alone. _Henry glided back to the middle of the pit and held out his hand. Chell appeared in his mind, no blood or bullet wounds, but exactly how he had painted her – wings curving through the air, skin flawless. Perfect.

_A test subject, a worthless thing, lower than a Weighted Storage Cube. Don't worry about her, she's part of us too. You'll see her again._

"Wish I could have… told her some things. I could have helped her more. Told her about –" his voice wobbled and he almost fell again, "everything. The past. You think I'd feel better if I did?" He let himself sag forward, hips pushing against the rail. "I'm tired. But she's stronger, and she can do it. She'll end this. Once and for all."

_No. A human against GLaDOS? A broken human against GLaDOS. You knew her more, but even you couldn't stop her. Don't feel too bad. This was never your story in the first place. _The decay shrank Henry, turned his clothes to dust, apart from his lab coat. _This isn't a punishment, it's a reward. You fought for a long, long time, but now you've earned a rest. A chance to stop._

"'And never a saint took pity on my soul in agony.'"

_Don't be melodramatic. No one'll play dice for _your_ soul._

"I think I've earned the right to be melodramatic." Palms pressed against his face. He stepped onto the bottom bar of the rail and looked over the edge again. "Long way down."

_Oh, it's not as far as it looks._

Up another bar. The top one dug into his shins. Henry's groan sounded like the chambers of Aperture shifting. Gravity tugged at his upper body. Even that hated him. "It feels like it should be… more than this."

_You want a choir, maybe some dramatic explosions?_

He opened his mouth to reply, but a flash of orange shut it. Chell stared at him from across the pit, her eyes wide.

No. Not here, not now.

_Better hurry up, _Henry said. _She'll think she'll be saving you when we both know it's the cruellest thing she could do._

On the edge. She stood, the distance between them impossible. He reached for her. She reached for him. And then Henry's voice in his ear, in his head.

"Cut down." _Cut deep._

He swung himself up, over the rail, on the other side now. Aperture beckoned. Back to the beginning. The abyss pressed against him. He stretched his arms out, fingers spread.

_Look, I have wings too._

Her eyes. Her hand reaching out. That was how he would remember her.

No regrets. The world tilted. He let himself fall.

Somewhere, GLaDOS sang quietly.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I think you've all waited long enough.**


	5. Chapter 5

Word count: 5,435

Warnings: M/F sex, so a bit NSFW, but I tried to keep it fairly tasteful and in keeping with the style.

A/N: I had to think up a name for the toxic sludge that's first present in test chamber 11, because I don't think it's ever given an official name (or at least, my digging yielded nothing - if it does have an official name, someone please tell me!). So Aperture Science Liquid Deterrent it becomes, mostly because I loved the name 'discouragement beam' for deadly lasers.

Fun fact: This is the penultimate chapter.

As usual, critique is welcome.

_-:-_

Soft floor. Nice. Springy. Material. A carpet, he supposed, and then stopped. He was dead, he didn't get to suppose. Light cracked his eye open and he forced closed it again.

"Hey. Doug."

_No._

"Yes. C'mon. Wakey wakey."

He opened his eye. Henry paced back and forth, like a tiger in a cage, his head tilted up and gaze focused on something far away. Pieces of skin floated from the ground, peeled themselves back onto his face. His lab coat was pristine white and a clipboard and pen replaced the gun in his hand. "So," he said, and tapped the end of his pen against the clipboard, "we're both back."

"Am I dead?"

Henry bent over him, hands on his knees, no bullet hole in his head. His face twisted into something that looked almost like pity. "If you are, you look damn good."

He shut his eye again. "Why?"

"Well, you've got the heartbeat and the brain activity-"

"No." He struggled to focus. "Why'd she do it?"

"Not something I can answer, I'm afraid. I guess she has her own reasons for saving you."

He tried to laugh, but all that came out was something guttural, painful. "Save me. Everyone wants to save me."

"If it's any consolation, I… tried."

Doug's hand found his face, scraped across his beard and then rubbed at his eyes. His side ached, and when he sat up the world tilted and taunted him with black spots. He didn't realise he was sitting on a couch until his head touched his knees. A couch, which meant an employee rec room. He didn't look up, just wrapped his arms around his head and squeezed as though he could crush his own skull. Shame human bones were fairly durable. Happy thoughts seemed to have been sucked out with all his other emotions. A hollow sense of nothing, like a robot ticking over until someone came and turned it off.

His fingers pressed into his eyes and he felt wetness slide down his cheeks. Still nothing there. Even if it was fear, hate, he wanted to feel something.

"Hey," said Henry, and Doug felt him crouch next to him, "look on the bright side. Third time's supposed to be the lucky one. The test subject can't be around forever, can she?"

Doug stood up. Gravity tried to collapse him back, but he gritted his teeth against it. In the corner, the Aperture logo still flickered on a dusty computer screen. He wobbled over to it, drew a path through the dust with his finger. Not dead. Not alive.

He picked up the monitor, tore the cables away. Threw it straight through Henry's head. Then the keyboard, then the mouse.

Henry blinked at him. "What did I do?"

A coffee table upended under Doug's foot. The cheap wood cracked, fragmented. The mouldy mugs shattered against the wall. Fire built inside his chest, blazed in satisfaction when he kicked a dead potted plant across the room. Finally, emotion. He clung to it as it welled behind his teeth and a helpless snarl ripped itself from his lips.

"Hey, Doug?" Henry glided around the upside-down table, spared a brief look at the smashed wood, "I really don't think you should be breaking company property. They're not going to like this-"

"_There is no company! Everyone is fucking DEAD!"_

The scream tore in his throat, but he didn't care. He picked up a stray mug, threw it in Henry's general direction and missed by several yards. His nails tore against canvas chairs. Splinters jabbed into his palms when he snapped something wooden, something he couldn't see through the red haze. No more Aperture, no more anything. Let it all _end_.

"So what are you going to do after you've crushed everything in here to dust?" Henry whispered, but it echoed inside Doug's head anyway. "Go and destroy the test chambers, the turrets, GLaDOS? Tear it all apart?"

Doug closed his eyes. Half of a pen bit into his hand. Her words came back, made him swallow in shame.

_Nothing is as good at killing as a human._

He dropped the pen. His back hit the wall and he slid down it, wrapped his arms around his knees. "Go away."

Henry flicked into existence beside him. "Excuse me?"

"Go away."

"Is that any way to talk to your supervisor?"

"My supervisor put a bullet in his head because he couldn't stand facing his mistake. He's been dead a long time."

"I'm not discussing this with you, Doug, now get up. We haven't finished our experiment."

Doug leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes. "No."

He floated in the black space behind his eyelids. Henry said something from far away, the words warped and distorted. Doug kept his eyes closed and his mouth shut. Monks in distant lands could stop their hearts from beating, so he had heard. Mind over matter, over body. Stop the heart just through thoughts. He took a deep breath, pictured it throbbing in his chest. Part of him.

_Die._

He closed his eyes tighter, dug the heels of his hands into the sockets, saw red burst into a million stars.

_Die. End. Cease. Just. STOP._

His heart ignored his brain, beat on, defiant.

How absolutely illogical. He took his hands away from his face, watched the world creep back into focus. Why not crank up the dopamine while he was at it? Why not grow himself another head? Children wished for the impossible, used their imaginations to try and make things happen. Trying to stop his own heart through sheer will was at odds with everything they had taught him. Unscientific. And unscientific things had no place anywhere, or so Aperture said. Was that why they had hired him? Because he had been so… cold?

Yes. He had helped them with tools. With things to hurt. And GLaDOS.

He slumped. Dust motes ghosted in a dim shaft of light. Aperture cradled him as he stared at nothing.

_-:-_

Doug had gone quiet.

She watched him through the vent grill, her fingers poked through the gaps and her body curled up tight. The portal gun jabbed into her side. He seemed much smaller, a lot less threatening now that he wasn't screaming and breaking things. His body was all angles, elbows and knees jutted beneath his clothes, skin shrunk taut against his skull. Huddled into himself, he closed his eyes. She remembered his hands, warm, pressing to keep the blood inside.

"_He won't help you,"_ GLaDOS had said when Chell once stopped to examine one of his paintings, _"he can't even help himself. Almost as useless as you. At least he can work out that the cube is not supposed to be in the Aperture Science Liquid Deterrent."_

His paintings had told her the story. A dead facility, ruled over by the insane computer. Workers in white coats murdered, though she didn't know the reason why. All gone except him. The broken man who had saved her life.

And then she had to throw down some portals to save his. They were even.

The grill made a small _chik _sound when she detached it. As gently as she could, Chell lowered it to the ground and unfolded herself, left the portal gun where it was. Her feet touched the carpet just as Doug murmured to himself. Some of the words had the same noise and she waited for a moment, enjoyed the rhythm of them. When he had stopped, she crouched beside him. He nestled his head into his knees, eyes still firmly shut. Too busy giving up to notice her. Black hairs stuck out from his face. She tilted her head, stared at them. Would they feel like her own hair?

She reached out a hand and brushed his cheek with one finger. The hairs poked her skin. Bristly, definitely not like the hair on her head. His face tilted to the side. Their eyes met. So empty. She kept her finger on his cheek.

"Why couldn't you just leave me alone?" His voice cracked, and tears glittered. "Why couldn't you just let it all end? I'm tired of all this, I'm tired…"

She fished his hand from his chest and held it tight. Still warm. He made a funny little hitching noise in his throat, and hid his face again. Words dripped from her brain and died when they reached her tongue. She had been able to talk before she woke up, hadn't she? What had they done to her? Fingers squeezed Doug's hand, and the words were still locked inside her head. They taunted, danced out of reach. She gritted her teeth, stood up, and yanked Doug's arm. He looked at her again, shook his head. Her lip curled and she pulled again, and through the block in her head: _up, go, move_.

He did nothing. She let his arm drop.

The desire to break things, as he had done, welled inside her. They needed to escape, couldn't he understand that?

"It was nice of you to try." He snuffled into his shirt sleeve. "So nice. I wish they had all been like you. I wish she was…"

Her arms went under his. She heard the small gasp and hauled him to his feet. The smell of blood clogged her nose. Her hand pressed his shoulder against the wall, stopped him from falling again. His eyes went everywhere but her face. The facility rattled around them. GLaDOS wouldn't be too happy at either of their absences, but it didn't feel like she could reach them. Chell took a deep breath. How to make him move? Maybe she could keep shoving him through portals until they found a way out, but he just looked so… fragile. Perhaps she'd sling him over one shoulder and carry him through the facility.

She watched the bloodstains on his shirt heave up and down as he breathed. Her blood. His hands.

Those hairs jabbed her palm when she held his face still. _Look,_ she said to him in her head, _look at me._ Dark irises jerked up to hers and then dashed away. His pupils were different sizes. She tilted her head, tried to catch his gaze again-

and then his hand was in her hair. He leaned forward and she didn't even have time to blink before his mouth touched hers.

It… wasn't entirely unpleasant. His lips were dry, and he quivered so badly that she worried he might fall over, but he didn't force or insist. Her own lips felt strange, warm and oversensitive. Her stomach swooped as though she had just jumped from a floor portal to a wall one. The twist. The giddiness.

The pressure eased. Warm breath blew against her cheek. Doug backed against the wall again and touched his mouth with his fingers. His gaze went back to the floor. "That was… sorry. That was inappropriate." She shook her head at him. "No? But you're a – I mean, I didn't-"

She was the one to press forward this time. He was still trying to talk when she kissed him, so she slid her tongue against his lips. His little yelp made her smile. When she pulled away, his eyes seemed to be a little unfocused. "Very inappropriate." His voice had gone deeper, and she wondered if hers would have done too. She let him go, moved to retrieve the portal gun, but the look of desperation on his face made her stop.

"Don't," he said, and took a step forward, his body against hers, "don't leave again."

She raised her eyebrows. Her finger jabbed at his chest.

"Yes, I know I'm a hypocrite. It's a great part of human nature. 'Judge not lest ye be judged', or something. But everyone does. They always do." He bit the nail on his thumb. "Watch out for me? I trust myself less than I trust GLaDOS." Chell pointed at herself. His face tinged with pink. "I trust you completely."

Even if she'd had her voice, she wouldn't know what to say to that.

She took his hand. It still trembled in hers, and she kept him close in case he fell down. He needed food, water. When she picked up the portal gun, she remembered the fruit he had given her. Maybe there was some more in the facility.

Portal gun at the ready, they slipped out of the room.

Corridors carved a labyrinth in front of them. She followed the signs on a few: _Employee Lounge 3a, Cafeteria, Level 7 Laboratory, _but it wasn't until they found one labelled _Showers_ that Doug took any notice. "We're on the other side of the facility?" He tapped the sign, eyes wide, thumbnail still between his teeth. "Can we go here? Please? This blood really… I don't like being covered in it. Even if it is yours. I mean," he said and turned to stare at the wall, "not that I… oh, Jesus, _shut up_."

A shower. Water falling from the sky. She remembered that much. Yes, washing away some of the sweat might be nice. Doug mumbled at the wall until she led him in the direction of the arrow. The lights flicked on in the next corridor when they walked down it. Doug looked up, squinted at them. She could see the difference between his pupils a lot better when the light hit them. "We'd stay down here for a long time, sometimes. I think the longest I went without being on the surface was… four months. Four and a half. Just working, all the time. The others complained, but I loved it. I didn't have anything to go back to, you see." He went quiet for a moment and then chuckled. "Henry and I, we'd sometimes stay up for three, four days solid in the lab. Then, when we were high on sleep deprivation and coffee, we'd play with the portal gun. Nearly killed each other a couple of times, but we had a good laugh afterwards."

And now everyone was dead. How was she supposed to feel about that? The people who had created GLaDOS, who didn't really seem to care about anything except tests, all gone except Doug. Had this all been a good thing?

They turned a corner. The shower room door was clearly labelled, but Doug took one look and then pressed against her back. His forehead met her shoulder blade and she could hear the long, dragged moans of "_no, no no nonono_."

A woman sat slumped against the door. Her head had fallen forward so that her yellow hair covered her face, but Chell didn't need to get any closer to see that she had been dead for a long time. The stink had hit her, such an instinctive smell of _wrong_ that she considered backing off. Blood had pooled around the corpse, now no more than a dried stain the colour of rust. A trail of it splattered up the floor of the corridor and then around another corner.

"Turrets," Doug whispered behind her. She turned to soothe him, but he stared straight through her, eyes glassy and thumbnail dripping red. She eased it out of his mouth and he grabbed her fingers. "Raise the dead," he said, voice low as though afraid he would wake up the corpse, "tear them down. We don't have to go in there."

She shrugged one shoulder and gave him a pat. He clung to the wall when she let go of him. If the floor had been a portal surface, she could have moved the body easily enough to the end of the corridor, but it looked like she was going to have to touch the woman.

The smell got worse the closer Chell came to the corpse. She inhaled through her mouth, but then she could almost _taste _it. Looked like she was going to have to get used to it quickly.

One withered hand lay on the woman's lap. Her white coat looked too big on her shrunken frame and as Chell peered closer, she could read the woman's name tag. Maris Devita. Maybe Doug had known her.

Chell bunched the collar of the woman's coat in her fist. Her knuckles brushed dead flesh. She pulled, and the smell crawled up her nostrils, rolled her stomach. With a creak, the woman's head fell backwards, and Chell caught a glimpse of leathered skin, of lips peeled away to bare teeth. She focused on the end of the corridor after that, not on the body dragging behind her, or Doug watching, just on reaching that one simple goal.

Her thoughts about the woman went away, hid themselves.

Turrets chirped around a corner. She let the body fall from her grasp. Hair fluttered, caught for a brief moment in the air before it covered the woman's face again. A hand fell over the other. Sleeping. It could have been him.

Doug knelt with his face pressed against the wall. She came closer and put her hand on his shoulder, shook him. He turned his face up, the corner of his mouth smudged with blood.

"She took him away. I looked one day and he wasn't there. She _took_ him." He wobbled to his feet and ran a hand through his hair. "I was good, I tried to find him. I… did try to find him, didn't I? I remember I was looking for something. Was it you?"

She took his hand, led him to the door. He kept his eyes on her. They walked into the room and the lights popped on, illuminated row after row of lockers and a long, white-tiled area for the showers. Doug let her go and ran his fingertips over the nearest locker. He tried the door, but it wouldn't budge. Nor would the next one. He rubbed his eyes. "There were keys. I need some new clothes. A towel."

Her hand went to the small of his back, and she nudged him towards the showers. Doug smiled. "I smell that bad?" She raised her eyebrows. "All right, I get the hint."

The way he kept slipping back and forth in coherence made her frown. He didn't seem dangerous, not towards her, but even he couldn't trust himself. Could she?

She watched as he stood to the side and pulled a lever on the nearest shower. When water hissed from the silver head on the wall, she turned away, examined the lockers. The metal doors seemed flimsy, enough force applied, or something wedged in the small gap could maybe open them.

She brought the portal gun up, tested the prongs. Her finger curled around one and pulled it to the side. Durable. Small enough to slide in the gap and use to break the door open and just hope they wouldn't snap.

The metal rasped when she pushed the portal gun against the pivot. Inside, the lock began to give. It took a few more heaves until the door popped open. Inside, nothing. She inspected the portal gun for damage and tried again.

Five lockers later, she found one towel and a shirt. Thirteen lockers later: another towel, a white coat and a picture of a woman in her underwear. She left the picture where it was. Maybe Doug would appreciate it, but it wasn't a vital thing.

He had his back to her when she approached, his clothes in a haphazard pile on the floor. He had found a bar of soap somewhere and was busy scrubbing it into his hair. The water ran red down his legs, swirled a pinkish-orange into the drain. She folded the towels over her arm, left the shirt, coat and portal gun on the floor, and reached around the spray to tap his shoulder. His yelp made her draw back. He turned, and his hands clasped between his legs. His face went that odd shade of pink again.

"Chell!" Soap dribbled from his hair and into his eye. He withdrew one hand and rubbed at the eye with a knuckle. "Ow!"

She tilted her head and held out a towel. He grabbed it, pressed it against his eye and shut the other. "Thanks. But. Uh…"

Her jumpsuit unzipped down the front. She detached the leg braces and set them next to the portal gun. Her shirt was almost as bloody as his, and when she took it off, the bullet wounds snagged the fabric. They had scabbed over a while ago, and now she didn't even feel them. The tight vest came next, then the thin pants, then she let her hair out of the ponytail to fall to her shoulders. Chell stretched, smiled at the feel of air hitting her bare skin, and stepped into the shower next to Doug.

The water streamed over her. A perfect temperature. Doug still rubbed his eyes, grumbled into the towel. She placed a hand on his shoulder and tried to take the soap from him. He jumped and dropped the towel into the water.

His eyes went to her chest. Then went wide. He squawked, put a hand over his face and turned away. "I didn't see anything! I mean, I saw… things, but I didn't mean to! Sorry!"

She wished he would stop apologising. All she wanted was the soap. She picked it up from where it had fallen onto the tiles. Held it to her nose. Just chemicals. Clean chemicals, but still chemicals. She passed it over her body, liked the way it left a slick trail behind on her skin. Under her arms she scrubbed hard, the bubbles frothing through the hair there and taking away the stale smell of her sweat. Doug had some good ideas. Throwing himself into a pit hadn't been one, of course, but this felt better than completing a test chamber.

Using her fingers, she combed the soap through her hair, then let the water blast it away. Next to her, Doug cleared his throat.

"You took the bandages off."

She shrugged at his back. If he would just look at her, he'd see she didn't need them. She rolled her eyes and grasped his wrist. He trembled. She made his fingertips trace the bullet wounds. When she took her hand away, he kept his there, touching. "You…"

He turned, slow. Looked. Frowned.

"Augmented healing," he said, as though that explained everything. "They must have done something to you. I don't have anything to do with the test subjects, so I don't know what-" He inhaled, sharp and loud. "Test… subjects. I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

Her arms wound around his neck. He made a little '_oh_' noise and she kissed him again.

_-:-_

He had no idea what to do with his hands.

They hovered over Chell's hips. He shouldn't have been so afraid to touch her, but Henry still lingered in his head, silent. She was stronger. Doug felt him seethe when he kissed her back. Aperture stopped existing. Everything they had done, everything... he had done, disappeared in her scent and touch.

His hands finally decided to rest on her lower back. That seemed safe enough. Her cheek brushed his, and her own hands touched his chest, fingertips finding every protruding rib. He wished he wasn't shaking so damn much. A thumb skimmed his nipple and he jerked. She studied his face, did it again. Now that was certainly an interesting sensation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice gave him an anatomy lesson. He tried to ignore it, focused on her finger tracing a scar that cut a bald swathe through his pubic hair.

"Work-related injury," he said into the side of her neck. Even after three years he wasn't convinced it was an accident. She explored the scar, then the rest of his hips. Maybe he should do something more than just cling to her. Maybe he should put his hands… where? Oh, God, what did you do with hands during sex? Was this a normal dilemma?

Wait, sex?

It was like a little light bulb had gone on in his brain. It had all happened so naturally that he hadn't really acknowledged it for what it was. Chell kissed him again, and his hands slid up her sides. Water dripped off the tip of her nose. There were so many things he wanted to tell her. About how sorry he was, how much he enjoyed being with her. How much he loved her.

Her hand dipped between his legs, and all rational thoughts were sucked into a vacuum. He made a tiny, desperate noise that could have been her name. She stroked. He trembled. Wanted.

He wasn't quite sure how he ended up on the floor, but with Chell pressed against him, under him, he didn't care. Their foreheads bumped together. His palm pushed against flesh hotter than fire, slicker than the soap. He could hear himself panting against her neck and felt her own chest move against his. A tongue swiped his neck. Water streamed off his neck, ran down to trickle onto her body. He pulled back, waited until she opened her eyes and looked at him. "Do you forgive me?"

Legs wrapped around his waist. He choked, gasped when her hips rolled against him. He felt her smile against his cheek. Couldn't help but smile back. "I love you."

Her nails bit into his shoulders when he pushed inside her.

Black hair streamed over the tiles when she tilted her head back, breathed hard. His trembling had turned to full-blown shivering. Pleasure strangled him. He found her lips and kissed her deep, moved his hips and felt her tense against him.

He couldn't remember the last time he had been happy. He couldn't remember the last person he had touched. But he would always remember this, the feel of her arms, the taste of her lips, the way her body arched up and joined to his. Nothing would get between them. GLaDOS would have to kill him before he let her go.

_Don't think about her,_ the voice, the real voice in the back of his head said, s_he doesn't deserve to be part of this. This is one thing she will never have._

A moan dragged itself from him. The human experience. Pain, death and… this. Happiness beyond anything GLaDOS would experience. Even if she killed him she couldn't take it away.

Chell's hand disappeared between their bodies. Her other one caught in his hair, tangled itself and clenched, unclenched, over and over. He kept moving. Couldn't stop, even if he'd wanted to.

Her body tensed. A wire pulled tight. His mouth stayed on hers. Her breath hitched, sounded like sobs, the closest to words she could get.

He held onto her when she collapsed. Kissed her again. Strained. Rushed pleas made it past his lips as whispers. She nuzzled the side of his face, blew a long, tired breath over his cheek. He moved faster. Tension knotted itself in his stomach, a white-hot mass that built and built and built. She smiled. Devious. Slid her thumbs against his nipples.

"_Chell,"_ he whispered. Then again. Again.

The tension snapped.

Her name caught in his throat. Pleasure stabbed in waves, jolts that shuddered through his body. She clung on, held him close as he cried out. Then again. Again.

The waves slowed. His cries trickled to whimpers, then silence. Face pressed into Chell's neck, he tried to slow his breathing. His heartbeat thudded in his ears.

Once he'd recovered himself enough, he looked down. Grey eyes blinked up at him, and hands cupped his face. "I love you," he said to her, and she nodded, just once, pressed her fingers against his chest. He kissed her forehead, then withdrew, let the water run over his stomach.

He lay on his back. Closed his eyes. The world became a hiss of water. Aperture slunk back into existence like a kicked dog. Endorphins scattered his emotions. Happiness. Satisfaction. The absence of fear. Right then, he was safe, and Chell was with him. All he needed. They could make a plan, escape would become something more substantial than a vague fantasy that played in his head at night. She had the portal gun, he had knowledge of the facility. Escape. He'd see the sun again.

Water pattered onto his face. He squinted up to see Chell's cupped hands opening, and then a deluge hit him. He spluttered, sat up. She retreated, her eyes wide, innocent. Playing. She was playing with him. How long had it been since he'd done that? He lay back down. When she came closer, he shot up, smacked the stream of water at her. She rolled away, slid the soap across the tiles at him. It hit his leg with a gentle nudge, but he rolled into a ball, hugged his leg and moaned.

Her smile warmed him more than their love making. He stopped pretending to be injured, and sat up, scooted until his back hit the wall. She walked over, sat beside him. Their feet stayed in the spray of water. His arm went over her shoulders.

"I'm glad you saved me," he said. It sounded idiotic, so he tried again. "I… what I said before. About how you shouldn't have?" She blinked at him. "It's complicated. Really, really complicated. More complicated than the components of that portal gun. Than the inside of Cave Johnson's mind."

No reaction at the name. Should he have expected one?

"I'm not… all right." He stared across at the opposite wall. Not even the endorphins could chase away the lump in his throat. "It's in my head. Like a chemical imbalance, or so the theory goes. It makes me see things. People. I had pills that kept it in check, but there's only two left, and I've got a feeling no one's making them anymore." He pointed at the ceiling. "She said things were happening outside. I don't know what. She likes to lie to me. Told me once that sharks had grown legs and were killing all the humans. Then it was the plants that were killing the humans. Then aliens." He laughed, then wished he hadn't. "I never know when to believe her."

Her hand squeezed his.

"We have to get out of here, though. No matter what's out there, can't be as bad as in here, right?"

She didn't smile. Her eyes went to the ceiling. Maybe GLaDOS had been telling her things too. Desperation clutched him. "Chell?" Her eyes met his. "We have to get out of here."

After staring at him for a moment, she nodded. He smiled. "Good. Great. Thank you."

He should have been standing up, getting dressed and trying to come up with some sort of plan, but all he wanted to do was sit there with her, at least until the water ran cold. He smiled to himself. Aperture Science. The water would run out before it ran cold.

Her fingernails tickled along the inside of his thigh. He poked her arm. Her fingers went higher. They both smiled. He leaned in to kiss her.

The lights went out.

He started, jumped to his feet. Beside him, Chell patted his leg, stood up too. Just the dark. The motion sensor lights probably hadn't picked them up for a little bit and had shut off. But then why weren't they back on? He moved his arm, walked forward a few steps. Nothing. He breathed through his mouth. Not enough oxygen. Too fast.

He pressed back against the wall. His hand found Chell's arm, gripped it a bit tighter than he'd intended. She smacked his shoulder and he let go. "Sorry. I just… why are they off?"

He could almost hear her thinking. _You should know, you fix the broken things in here._

"They don't go off," he whispered, mouth dry, "they _shouldn't be_ off."

A hum. A dull green glow lit the room up from the ceiling. Emergency lights. The facility must be running the base amount of power needed.

He knew who controlled it. He didn't need to say her name again. But there was no reason for it, no reason to turn the lights out to try and scare test subjects when she knew the emergency power would kick in. Unless…

Chell was a glowing green angel under the lights. When he turned to her, she tilted her head at him, frowned. He cleared his throat, couldn't quite believe the words he was about to say.

"I think she's off."


End file.
